Forgive the very brief post, but I am actually quite tired tonight. We had a lot of blue skies, but NE winds. There were indications more than once that raptors flying over could not be seen, because we sometimes looked at birds that were there one instant, and we either would lose them, or find them later fading into hazes or distance. I once looked straight up, and was amazed at how many hawks had suddenly appeared overhead. I had just looked into those skies and found nothing. Then the sky was suddenly full. So I jumped up to show everyone where to look. I stood to lean on my stool, so I could look out beyond them to start counting, as they flew through. NO HAWKS, NONE. As I scanned back, I was appalled that what had looked like over a hundred, maybe two, was no where. I scanned back to where I had first seen them and a whole new set of hawks was entering the airspace, but not nearly so many as I had first seen. The larger group just vanished into the blue, and haze. This also happened later as a kettle of hawks began streaming off into the distance, and just flew into invisibility. But, as Jimmy says, we can only count what we can see, and forget the rest.
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| Jimmy stays busy, just keeping the stats. |
9/23/15, Wednesday
467 Broad-wings
2 Sharp-shinned
1 Cooper's Hawk
1 American Bald Eagle
2 Northern Harriers
Watchers: Bill Haley, Harold Birch, Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson, Ruth Ann Henry.
Note: Ruth Ann has been with us many times over the past few years, and has never been on a day when we saw large kettles or numbers of streaming birds. It was so exciting that, just as she arrived today, over a hundred hawks were arranged over the pole for her to see. And among them were 3 Adult Bald Eagles. Later, we teased her to go back to her car and come back up, and on the occasion she went down after lip balm, she came back up to a repeat of hawks streaming through. LOL She then kept her binocs to the sky, until she found her very own stream of hawks and got us on them. Congrats, Ruth Ann. You are officially a hawk-watch veteran now!
Keep Looking UP!!!!
Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson
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