A mix of clouds and sun, with light winds out of the North, following a front which produced no flight rains ---
By now you may know that it means there may be hawks sitting north of us waiting for some thermals, or anxious to come through along the updrafts from the ridge. A little too much wind and they will zip past in a few moments, but which ever way they are flying today..we must be there to see them.
This week will wind down our intense manning of the hawk watch, as we hope to see the great final push of Broad Wings in migration this season. There should be an increase in the numbers of certain other raptors, with far less kettling and thermalling and congregating going on. Now through the weekend will be some of the last few days Jimmy and I can man the hours intensely. Historically, the greatest numbers of BWs have already past us. But who knows how warmer weather will affect the numbers coming past us this season. Did we miss the big numbers because blue skies camoflauged the streaming flights of hundreds at great heights last week? Did they fly along an eastern or western ridge? Or are they yet to come?
It's those kinds of questions that keep us going back. Always hoping to see more of the amazing journey of life that has gone on for centuries on end. We hope some of our visitors are getting hooked on helping to know the answers. If you only select one week to look for Broadwings kettling in your neck of the woods, consider where you are in relation to the hawk watch. Are you a couple of hours north of us? Focus your prime week a few days earlier than ours. Georgia and Alabama friends, maybe this will be YOUR big week, if hawks seen along more easterly ridges are sitting somewhere waiting to make their westerly push over your state. Without watchers, we cannot know. So keep looking up.
We hope to arrive this morning by about 10am. Clouds and a chance of rain this morning will slow things down a bit. But we want to be sitting there as it clears. If you arrive early, watch the ridge and the valley for the accipiters which love to hug the bank. Practice your skills of looking for the flap, flap glide of their flight pattern. Sharpies and Coopers Hawks are the accipiters, small with long tails. Coopers are the ones with the white edge along the tip of its curving tail. If the white rump patch is very large, the illusion is that the bird is towing a ball. Their classic sillouette, is wings often look swept back, making a round bullet tip shape when they are not flapping. You may not see the clear outline of the head of a Sharp-shinned extending beyond that wind arc.(at a distance) But you ususally can see a little of the head on the Cooper's Hawk. The Sharp-shinned Hawk has a more squared end to it's tail, and often appears longer in proportion because it lacks the white on the end. It too can have a dominant white area on the tail near the body. Remember that males and females are significantly different in color in many hawk pairs. Come prepared to look for different behavoir in accipiters than in Broad-wings.
They will make the large kettling circles too, to get lift, but generally not in such great numbers in our area. Remember, that other hawk watches may observe a variable set of hawks and circumstances than ours. Some of the things we teach about our watch, may be significantly different at another place. Hawks may come through a coastal watch in a much different way than over a ridge for instance. And by the time they are streaming through lower Texas, they aren't seen casually flipping dipsy-doodles to eat dragon flies, like we see. They are on a mission by then to get out of Dodge. LOL
Bring your TUNA sandwiches!!!
THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!
No comments:
Post a Comment