The greatest Mass of BW's ever!!! But NO COUNT

This week has been a little slower than we expected because we have primarily been counting Broad-wings as singles up to 3 or 4 at once, generally flying across the sky without pausing to thermal.  Many have been far along the horizons and along the tree tops rather than overhead. 

On Tuesday, Sept. 17, our long time partner and friend, Harold Birch  filled in a few hours and saw 18 BW's and 1 Osprey.

On Wednesday Sept 18, we had 171 BW's and I have a story to tell you about the uncountables.

And today, Thursday Sept. 19, we struggled to pull out 44 BW's and we counted 1 Red-shouldered Hawk.

Yesterday morning, we stayed about an hour and saw one BW before the skies became totally socked in with clouds.  Knowing how uninclined hawks are to flying on a truly cloudy day, we decided to drive west and stop at the Hang-gliding Flight Port of the Tennessee Tree Toppers Club, to look off into the Sequatchie Valley and see how far the cloud cover went.  There was no sky visible for as far as we could see in any direction, so after checking out Window Rock, we drove back East on 111 expecting to go home.  But when we neared Jones Gap Road, the skies were beginning to clear. We decided to drive back out to the hawk watch, and sit long enough to eat lunch, then decide whether to stay.  As the skies continued to clear, we began to see a few Broad-Wings, so we settled in for the count.  No large kettles,but a semi steady flow of a few at a time kept us busy.

I scanned behind me, and sat back into my chair late in the afternoon, and spotted a very distant Red-tailed local kiting near the electric pole on the hill.  I strained to look at it between the wires, just to be sure, and saw deep in the haze behind him, what we have come to call, a kettle of hawk specs "blinking" in and out of the haze and clouds.  I really strained to see the tiny hawks, whose entire kettle fit into a tiny oval between the wires.  I commented that I didn't know how to count hawks I really couldn't see. And as we have done in the past I verbally noted that we needed to keep an eye on them watchng to see if they came out of the haze so we could see them well enough to get an accurate count.

Jimmy was having difficulty getting on my RT, much less the blinking BW's, so I swung my Binocs back to the pole to give him reference points. I noticed a much larger field of blinking hawks. As I helped Jimmy with bearings, I realized that if I could see any of these hawks, I really needed to count as many as I could.  Back to the original kettle which had gained enough altitude to be coming out of the haze, I actually counted 33 and followed by counting down through the remainder of the kettle to get an estimate before they were forever lost into the clouds. 10- 20-30 etc to 100. 133 and they were gone.  Straining to see if they emmerged higher Jimmy was able to count 40 of them through a break  in the clouds before they once again dissappeared. I saw where he was counting from, and thought, just maybe we could see them again in a bit if they flew SW.  As I scanned back along the SW horizon, the mass of shadowy silhouettes milling about in the hazy soup took my breath away. All I could say was, OMG! From about half way from the house to at least that far again past the pole, and half the height of the pole up into the sky above it was a massive cloud of indecernable hawks.  They were so dense in the sky that the haze looked like it was crawling, and writhing.  There were glittering flashes of the wings, but the birds were transparent in the haze.  When I compared the tiny spot in the sky where I just counted 130 hawks, I realized there were at least 15 times that many hawks out there, and possibly hundrends more!  Because of the haze and clouds and the extreme distance, I couldn't even see individuals, much less count them.

I wondered if we could see some of them before they totally vanished by looking through the scope, but by the time Jimmy was able to focus it in their direction, the clouds had encompassed the entire mass.  Jimmy asked me how many could I guess were there, and all I could do was feel an overwhelming loss.  How do you guess or estimate or even assume you could possibly know how many there were when: 1. I have never seen that many hawks  at one time on our hawk watch, and 2. I literally never actually saw a single one of those blinking in the haze.  All I could see was what looked like the sky was moving and the glitter of what could have been 3000 or more sets of wings, which were flashing in the sun. I genuinely believe that we missed seeing the most remarkable number of hawks ever recorded at our site, but I have no idea how to honestly say how many there might have been.

I have always said I was just waiting for the day that we had more hawks than we could actually count.  But I never really wanted to go home knowing we had more hawks than we could actually count, but we actually could not even see them to count them. I have had those shadowy kettles of hawks that I was remorseful over them slipping away into the heights of the blue sky, or the morning haze, or the afternoon clouds.  But never have I had so many, that it was actually the largest number of hawks I ever saw at one time outside of Texas. I knew they were there because I could see their movement.  I have seen that many times before and watched and waited for the distant birds to come nearer. But these were not on a path to come nearer. They had slipped in from behind clouds along the ridge, and were aready heading west/SW getting harder and harder to see even the flashing of their wings, and the white flash of their under belly as they banked and turned.  There were no shapes to make out. Just a huge irregular writhing mass.

Jimmy wanted to write them down as 500+ but even that would be a gross under estimate.  But we genuinely don't know any way to put an actual number to them.  So they may not go down in the records at all.  It's only right. What you can't count, or at least give an educated estimate...you can't list.  I just know I will forever want to see that again, only close enough to have the dilemma of how to count all the ones I can see. LOL
Happy Hawking ---THINGS ARE LOOKING UP!