Plenty of Eyes Tuesday

We welcomed hawk watching friends Bill Haley, Harold Sharp, and Phil and Carolyn Snow (Loudon, TN) to  our watch on Tuesday and hope to see them again today.  With such excellent help, we were bound to see all possible hawks. Well, even the best could miss a few.  But we always say, "More eyes cover more skies." 

Cloud cover changed dramatically through out the day, but was not to yield as many Broad-wings as we hoped. Our expectations remain high for a good count today...unless the skies are solid blue.  As we have said before, high hawks are oh so hard to see in a blue sky.

We had an unusually low flying, unusually dark, large, immature Broad-wing yesterday.  In fact, the only reason we felt absolutely sure to call it, was due to the dark outline, which surrounds the wings of a Broad-wing, was dark and very visible on this bird.  Jimmy also noticed the banding in the tail.  We watched it in awe as it passed close and strait over head.  Bill jested that we were more stumped by a hawk passing close than the specks. And he would be right in my case. I more readily recognize their silhouette and behavior at a distance.  A sitting hawk - sometimes, I would have to look in the book. 

We had wonderful conversation of birding spots out west, and Carolyn had excellent pictures to share of her newest Western species found.  It set our hearts to longing, to see what we haven't seen. A little conversation, helps to liven the longer day. We spent our longest day yet, logging in 8 hours, I believe. Bill arrived around 8:30 AM hoping to capture the "early birds," Falcons, Accipiters, Osprey, etc.  But, alas there were none to show up.  Bummer. We were counting on you, Bill. LOL

We saw several Bald Eagles, but counted only 3. The 3 we could determine were unique from one another. Hope we didn't discount a couple of Adults.  Our local Red-Shouldered family continue to rise up from the trees to escort the other Buteos out of their territory, and on occasion will fuss dramatically at an Eagle or two.  It's all part of the experience!

Tuesday's Totals were:
9-17-2014
Broad-winged Hawks     37
Sharp-shinned Hawks     3
Coopers Hawks               1
Red-shouldered Hawks   2
Bald Eagles                     3


Temps remain in the low 80's, and winds were mild, under 10 all day.

Be sure to check the Watch Totals from around the US, and the remarkable numbers that can be seen each day in certain prime areas. See: Hawk Count for HMANA. And notice the 68,000+ hawks counted yesterday at Detroit River Hawk Watch! WOW.  I will put a link on the sidebar for future reference.

Good birding to ya,
Keep Looking up!!!