Mount Lorette (29 Oct 2022) 80 Raptors
Alberta, Canada
| Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 29, 2022 | |||
| Species | Day’s Count | Month Total | Season Total |
| Turkey Vulture | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Osprey | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Bald Eagle | 8 | 72 | 85 |
| Northern Harrier | 0 | 5 | 8 |
| Sharp-shinned Hawk | 0 | 18 | 47 |
| Cooper’s Hawk | 0 | 13 | 24 |
| Northern Goshawk | 0 | 18 | 25 |
| Broad-winged Hawk | 0 | 0 | 4 |
| Swainson’s Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Red-tailed Hawk | 0 | 22 | 31 |
| Ferruginous Hawk | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Rough-legged Hawk | 0 | 11 | 11 |
| Golden Eagle | 68 | 2046 | 2201 |
| American Kestrel | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Merlin | 0 | 13 | 15 |
| Gyrfalcon | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| Peregrine Falcon | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| Prairie Falcon | 0 | 3 | 4 |
| Unknown Accipiter | 0 | 8 | 14 |
| Unknown Buteo | 0 | 11 | 12 |
| Unknown Falcon | 0 | 2 | 4 |
| Unknown Eagle | 3 | 17 | 21 |
| Unknown Raptor | 0 | 8 | 11 |
| Total: | 80 | 2273 | 2524 |
| Observation start time: | 07:15:00 |
| Observation end time: | 17:30:00 |
| Total observation time: | 10.22 hours |
| Official Counter | Caroline Lambert |
| Observers: | Lynn Macintosh |
Visitors:
18 visitors stopped by to check out the scene and chat. Several people brought binoculars and scanned the ridges for a while.
Weather:
The weather was upside down again. The strongest winds were early in the morning with ridge winds up to 130kph, gusting to 155kph, then dying down a lot in the afternoon and picking up at the end of the day – quite the opposite to what is expected. In addition, the temperature high of 6C was not that much different from the morning low of 4C. Not much sun was seen between the cumulus clouds that raced across the sky from a westerly direction. Bits of the west ridge kept vanishing behind snow-laden clouds, but the east ridge remained clear.
Raptor Observations:
Again, the clouds were helpful in spotting the migrants which were all over the place on the east side of the valley. The wind allowed most of them to glide by quickly and effortlessly, not showing much in the way of ID marks. That, combined with the lack of light, resulted in another day with a high number of unaged eagles. The distribution was somewhat even throughout the day, but the hour with the most eagles was 10am to 11am, when we had 20. Nearly half of the migrants were seen in the morning, which, like the weather, was unusual. The tally was 68 Golden Eagles (27a, 5sa, 4j, 32u), 8 Bald Eagles (2a, 1sa, 1j, 4u), 3 eagles not identified to species, and 1 Peregrine Falcon.
Non-raptor Observations:
Many flocks of small birds, ranging in size from 10 to 50, zipped by us at high speed throughout the day. Most of these were determined to be Bohemian Waxwings. The total of waxwings in these flocks that could be identified was about 180, but there could have been more. Along the trail to the site 2 Mountain Chickadees, 2 Black-capped Chickadees, 1 Boreal Chickadee, 2 Golden-crowned Kinglets, and 1 Red-breasted Nuthatch were detected. 2 Common Mergansers were seen flying down the river, and 5 loons (presumably Common Loons) were seen flying high to the south. 3 Canada Jays were around, about 6 Common Ravens were spotted, and Tom the American Dipper serenaded us several times late in the day.
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Mount Lorette information may be found at: eaglewatch.ca
More information at hawkcount.org: [Site Profile] [Day Summary] [Month Summary]
Count data submitted via Dunkadoo – [Project Details]
