Banner Day...but A Tough One

Afternoon  skies with SSW winds  WCA

We arrived later than some mornings at about 10:45am, to blue skies.  Solid Blue.  We searched them until we were actually motion sick, both of us.  No one was able to help us today, so we knew we had to keep our eyes to the skies, but it makes me sea-sick every time my binocular view touches something stationary, like a tree, or a roof, as you search through all blue sky.  By 11am there was a thick haze, the kind where birds blink out, and I found a high, far out kettle.  I strained to see into it, but the only BWs that I could see were the ones that swung out to the front as they circled around the funnel of thermaling air.  They were getting higher and harder to see, so I counted what was coming off the top and disappearing into the blue, and down through the kettle at what I could see for sure..so out of a kettle that may have had twice to three times as many hawks, I could only count 15 for certain. Then they did the classic vanishing act and we never saw them again.  Jimmy commented that he certainly hoped our whole day wouldn't be like that.

At 11:25am, Charles Murray called to say he was viewing 25 BWs kettling over Hiwassee Refuge, in Birchwood, Tn.  We had wondered before, since we could see Birchwood from the Hawk watch, could we see hawks from there coming our way?  So, we watched for his kettle, but never saw it.  I know we could not have seen it - out that far, but if it had flown into our air space, we might have known by the count, in a reasonable amount of time, if they might be his birds.  But no such luck. I do wish more people would notify us of what they are seeing.  We'ld like to know.

Bill Haley checked in a while later and we still had seen under 50...but, boy, did that change!

No more suspense, we saw 1149 Broad-wings today!!

In the 6 hours we were there, each hourly total was like this:
             ~ 22, 10, 818, 60, 239, & 0 ~

That puts us at a YTD of 2342 BWs.

If I am not mistaken, Jimmy said we saw the 706 hawks in 44 minutes. The 239, we saw in the first 12 minutes of the 3:00 hour, all in just 10 of those minutes. Constant counting - one kettle streaming in after another. Some I had to count very quickly, before they blinked out.  At one time I was counting a large kettle and also sorting out Bald Eagles and a Peregrine Falcon. But after 3:12 we only saw 2 Sharpies.

Here's the list-

9/22/15, Tuesday:
1149 Broad-wings
       2 Sharp-shinned
       1 Coopers Hawk
       1 Osprey
       1 Peregrine Falcon
       4 Adult Bald Eagles
       1 MERLIN
       2 American Kestrels

WCA

A banner day, even though we are worn out! Primarily NE winds under 6mph, and almost everything we counted today went SSW or S.  Late in the day, the path they took changed from flying along the west over the house, to flying somewhat down the valley and or SW from there.
Barometric pressures stayed between 30.15 to 30.08 all day, dropping each hour.  Most of the Hawks were high and moved through quickly.  We often saw hawks enter the kettles from the S & E, and at many levels, rather than the majority coming in from the bottom of the kettle. They flew in from every height.  It was one of those days, when it was obvious that Broadies from all over the sky were just searching for the nearest thermal, to get on out of there.

We also have had many more Monarchs than last year. So nice to see their recovery underway. And toward evening, there were dozens of Clouded Sulphurs flying by in small groups, skipping along the tall grasses.  We only saw them because a wind change to S Westerlies, put a halt to hawks. Nothing seen after 4:31pm, I believe it was.


Before morning, I hope to put up a feature blog about Bill Haley's trip to Hawk Mountain. If not today, by Friday for certain.  Please be sure to watch for it.  You will enjoy what he has shared with us.

If you get a moment during the day, remember to-

KEEP LOOKING UP!!!!

Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson