Thursday Stats and a size discussion

With beautiful skies, scattered clouds at various levels, we expected to see the late push of Broad-wings to be in kettles, but no. Just single digits. Storms just northwest of us may have pushed them to run on the ridges east of us, but we never really know. We love to speculate. Numbers from watches north and NE of us prove there are still birds migrating through, but they just didn't materialize during the hours we spent on the watch.   But what we watched of locals being highly active cannot be called fruitless. Always, seeing the hawks for extended periods helps to strengthen our skills.  To the left is a clip of a Red-shouldered Hawk in deep blue skies.

 

 

 

YEAR TO DATE TOTALS:

4546   BW, 13 SS, 8 CH, 18 BE, 2 OSP, 5 PG, 4 AK, 1 ML, 4 NH, *1 GE

 

TOTAL HAWKS: 4601

 

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Broad-winged profile



Broad-Winged Hawks are one of 3 Buteos we see in the East. It is the smallest of the three. Red-tailed Hawk is the largest and Red-shouldered Hawks are somewhere in between, generally.  It can be relative to whether they are Male or Females and their distance from the viewer.   Below is a picture from over our ridge taken just to compare size.

2 RS & 1 RT

In the next clip, a TV flew in.  In it, there is an obvious size difference. Even though the Red-Tail is a large Buteo, it is much smaller than the Turkey V.  Now imagine in the pic above an even smaller buteo, and that would be a Broad-wing.

In the circle, fading into the haze is the same RT as above, compared to the Turkey Vulture in the top of the clip, and the 2 Red-Shouldered closer in the shot at the bottom of the photo.  In the clip below are the RT and the TV only.  Turkey Vultures compare to Eagles in size rather than Buteos. My reason for pointing this out, is that many visitors to the hawk watch tend to get on Vultures easily, and we want them to learn to look for a smaller bird.

 

 

Thursday 9 27 12

 

• 16 Broad-winged Hawks
•   1 Osprey
•   1 Sharp-shinned Hawk

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18  Total countable

 

Jimmy and I were the only counters on this day.

 

Other birds: N. Cardinal, E. Towhee, Gold Finch, Blue Jay, Am. Crow, E. Phoebe, E. Bluebird, *Hairy WP, Chimney Swift (lg #s), Ruby Throated Hummer, Red-bellied WP, Tufted Titmouse, Wht-breasted Nuthatch, Pileated WP, Red-headed WP, N. Flicker, Turkey Vulture, Blk Vulture, Red-shouldered Hawk, Rock Pigeon, Red-tailed Hawk, House Finch and Mourning Dove.

 

55 Monarch butterflies.  Also- Sulphurs, Common Buckeyes, Blues and so many others.