No Flight Patterns Today

Today's count:
49 Broad-wings, one Kettle of 13
1 Sharpe Shinned Hawk
1 Cooper's Hawk
1 Osprey
1 Red-Shouldered

We waited on the complete over cast skies to open up, today, even though we might have had opportunities to see Accipiters earlier. Arriving a little after noon, we found Bill Holt had arrived before us, and already had counted 3 Broad-wings, just as the skies cleared a bit.  That set a tone for the day.

Instead of finding the hawks in a dependable flight pattern, they were appearing any where a bit of blue sky could be seen, as holes in the clouds appeared and disappeared rapidly, in hundreds of segments of the sky. Thank goodness for an extra pair of eyes.  I bet we missed a few birds because of the quickness of the flights of our raptors today. A 15mph NW wind drove them along, and helped them soar to remarkable heights.  In the distant clouds, we watched them become "microscopic" as they soared in kettles  that took them from blue sky up into grey clouds and out the top into the open, with bright white clouds in the back ground.

We watched one kettle of at least 13 birds go higher and higher until it had almost risen as high as the highest clouds, through several layers, before they ever peeled off to the south.  They were less than specks, but too amazing to take our binocs off them.  It took quite a while for them to rise that high, and were very difficult to see, even when they emerged from the clouds. At times, when they disappeared into the deep gray, we just patiently continued to scan the area at a higher and slightly southward place, where they would reappear, thermaling higher and higher, through layer after layer of clouds. 

Why does that even mean anything to me as a hawk watcher?  Well, we have questions like: "Do hawks fly on cloudy days?" Generally,  we consider "socked in" days unproductive, because we can't see many Broad-wings.  But I have now been there on days when-
1. conditions are right and hawks are on the move,
2. when the clouds were breaking up,  and
3. we see the BW's appear suddenly from "nowhere",
-to now know, definitively.
 >They DO fly if the clouds are somewhat low, or are broken and rapidly changing, with blue sky above. But they fly above the clouds, where we generally can't see them. To do so they must have an opportunity somewhere north of us to rise on the thermals to get to those heights. There must also be birds aggressively ready to move.

 We don't always have the chance to actually watch that great feat occur except on days with unique weather like we had today.  Sure we see them rise on thermals, but we generally see them rise to a certain height and peel off the top toward the West or SW from over or just off our ridge.  But many of the Broadies we have seen the last few days were seeking the thermals that formed in spite of the clouds, over highways, and over the river.  Way out over the valley.  From that perspective we could see them mount up through layer after layer of clouds, until they were almost invisible.

The same thermal, seemingly, moves as if traveling along like a slow moving tornado, driven by the winds. In other words. Birds that we first see low in the funnel, will continue to rise, apparently, in the same funnel, but will continue to move in the direction the funnel of air is moving, and at that rate.  We may first see them due east, but by the time they have reached the top, many hundreds of feet high, and 15 minutes later, they are miles south of the original location, but appear to be in the same funnel of rising air. This scenario, is different than the one we often see over the ridge, where even large numbers of hawks may move through, catching one thermal after another, rising on each, for a short distance and flying to the next.  They do rise on single thermals to great heights over the ridge, but in general, the thermal remains relatively stationary, in comparison to what we saw today.
I can only assume that the Winds and the heat from previous day, were causing an extreme rising of air and moisture that was unique for this time of year.  It was something that Bill Holt remarked upon as being odd for us on the watch. And we agree.

Jimmy wished that I also remark that we counted our first in each of the 4 species of Raptors that were not BW's today: Osprey, Sharp-shinned, Red-shouldered and Coopers Hawk.  Although we saw others of the Accipiters and the RS that played and hunted like locals, these 4 birds flew from when we first spotted them like they were on a mission to get further south.  They "acted" like migrating birds should.

One more note: Harold Birch's recommendation to never neglect scanning a kettle of Vultures for an opportunity to find other migrating Raptors, has really paid off lately. Due to the bulk of clouds and high percentage of cloud cover, the Vultures have led us to many of the hawks we have recorded these first few days.

We started our day needing 575 Broad-wings to reach our 50,000 BW Grand Total for BW's counted from this site. Only one short of a 50 BW day, our count down is now at 526 BW's to go. This will be a RECORD SETTING YEAR!!!   <(read more about it at this link.)

From Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson,
For the Soddy Daisy Hawk Watch Team
Happy Hawk Hunting &

KEEP LOOKING UP!