As soon as we got settled, a kettle of Vultures rose over the ridge, with Broad-wings weaving themselves into the boil. It was like that until after lunch. We operated on the "Harold Birch Rule" - never miss an opportunity to see what is flying with the Vultures. In fact, almost every BW we saw rose through the ranks of groups of Vultures.
But the afternoon was not so hot...no, let me back up. It was dangerously hot...but the hawk watching had almost nil going on. Ruth Ann Henry joined us after lunch, and watched with us as the clouds just melted into dry air. Just before she arrived we saw one each of American Kestrel and Peregrine Falcon.
The totals today were encouraging:
September 15, 2016
31 Broad-wings (BW)
1 American Kestrel (AK)
1 Peregrine Falcon (PG)
Ruth Ann remarked that even the Vultures were zipping through in tight winged bullet fashion. I had made the same comment about the Red-tails earlier. Everything seemed to be traveling with wings pulled in tightly. We call that moving through like a bullet, especially if they are moving faster than usual. Some of the earlier birds rose to great heights, and a few "blinked out" in the hazes. A few of the highest ones vanished into higher clouds. So while I was focusing on tiny specks, Jimmy just happened to notice a line of bullets zipping by straight over our heads, and much closer in. So glad he scanned the sky at close range. We would have missed those.
Thanks for an extra set of eyes, Ruth Ann. I felt like we found every hawk we could have. Even in the afternoon blue skies. When the hawks weren't available, we had two treats. One was one of the most beautiful Sun Dogs I have ever seen. It was initially a laser beam of sunlight to the left of the sun shooting through a rainbow ring of color. Soon a second appeared on the right. As we talked, I said that sometimes they would develop another on the top, just as Ruth Ann saw it form. We were so excited because it was getting to be more remarkable by the minute. As we marveled, she noted that a ring was forming almost entirely around the sun drawing itself through the 3 points of rainbow light holes. We laughed as we jested, that the only thing that would make it better would be a double ring, by this time almost expecting it to form at command. It didn't but it stayed around for about 20 minutes. And was so bright that we had difficulty blocking out the sun to see it.
As we were packing up, our second surprise was a singing Prairie Warbler. Heard only briefly, it was never-the-less close.
We also had 2 Monarch Butterflies today Hoping those numbers increase.
Til tomorrow's report....
KEEP LOOKING UP!
Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson
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