With DEEP REGRETS....

Mega Kettles

It is with the deepest regret than I must inform our precious friends who came from near and far, to spend the day to help us, in intense heat....I really must inform you, that for 23 years I have sat on the hawk watch to see what we saw tonight!!!!!

WE BROKE RECORDS AFTER YOU LEFT.....SOOOOOOO SORRY you weren't there to see it!!!!!!  

With much love, knowing how badly you would have loved to have been there, we must post the truth:  We just blew our yearly record for BW's seen OUT OF THE WATER.  Jimmy is composing a TN-bird report with the details, so I must wait and keep you in suspense.  But, OH MY< OH MY<OH MY, I can hardly wait to tell you....

Thank you so much Bill Holt for staying with us. 

This is how it happened - When the last person left, other than Bill Holt, I said to Jimmy, "You know, this feels like, and the skies look like, one of those nights when we should stay a little later - just to see what comes through.  I believe we will have a final push this evening." He agreed that he felt that way too, and Bill awaited our decision, then settled in along side us.  It wasn't long before he said, " I have a single hawk...."   The understatement of the entire hawk watch history.

And that's all I can say for now...More later.

 

JUST A HINT: What would you think if you were seeing hawks by the pole -

On both sides of the pole....from the pole to the house, tiny hawks that filled the sky completely covering the area between the upper and middle wires, stretched from before the pole, all the way to the house?  TINY Hawks filling the sky over the gap and then some.     We first saw them so far out, that all of them fit inside the tiniest cloud over the ridge, and even then it took our breath away. We had just discussed how to count a mega kettle...And the last thing we said before we started counting was, "I guess we are about to find out!"

Details updated to this page in just a little while>>>

 

From here

They moved to here...and streamed between the wires
from the pole to the trees

Here it is!!! Jimmy's Report:
"9/24/2015
SMHW
Hamilton co., Tn.

Where do I start?  Guess it better be with counters and visitors,
our sincere thanks goes out to Chuck & Lola Estes; Shane Williams
and his mom Deborah; Harold Birch; Hugh Barger; Bill Haley; Bill
Holt and Cynthia & Jimmy Wilkerson.

Shane, I missed a whole line of numbers in my early count records.
As you were leaving I told you we had seen north of 600 Broad-winged
Hawks but the near estimate was another 200 birds attributed to the
missed line, so the corrected number would have been an estimate of
800 birds.

BUT...the rest of the story.  About 4:45 everyone had left the watch
except for Bill Holt and Cynthia and me.  We got to see the remainder
of the second best hawk watch day at Soddy Mountain.  Our all time best
day was September 27, 2009 when we tallied 3992 Broad-winged Hawks.  We
also had a good representation of other hawks and eagles too.  The exact
number escapes me just now but, should have been another ~50 birds.
That day is still the record! However we counted over 3000 Broad-winged
Hawks today.

At 4:59 I believe the largest kettle we ever counted appeared to the right
of the pole.  1200 birds!  They stretched from right of the pole and almost
over to the house.  I guess this was an area of about 20 degrees high and
about 30 to 35 degrees in length.  While they were not specks they were
distant, but, hey even I saw them and was able to count by tens until I
had reached 750 birds.  A little off to the right I counted another 150
again by tens.  Then Cynthia and Bill got me on another group to the left
of the main body that was another 350 birds.  Using my fuzzy math that
equaled ~ 1250.  The three of us settled on a guestimate of 1200 birds so,
that is the official number as I recorded it.  Soon they were on another 161
birds plus another 200 that I never saw.  In seconds it seemed, we were on
another group of 500, counted by my tens.  The last "little" kettle was 120
birds at 5:25 to finish our day.  Recapping, we had 2181 birds in 26 minutes.
These birds passed in 85% cloud cover and that tiny open area was the only
part of sky left to count in.  I sincerely believe these hawks were flying
late trying to get ahead of the approaching expected rain.

While checking past records, Cynthia, saw where our best Broad-winged Hawk
yearly totals were in 2009 when we counted 5242.  Todays count puts us at a
year-to-date total of 5848 which is 606 BW's above our best year record.

CONTRAGULATIONS TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO HELPED US COUNT SO FAR THIS SEASON!!!

Todays totals:

3039  Broad-winged Hawks
   7  Sharp-shinned Hawks
   7  Cooper's Hawks
   3  American Kestrels
   1  Northern Harrier
   1  Red-tailed Hawk
   2  Unidentified Raptors
    and an immature Bald Eagle that flew north so we couldn't count it.

Jimmy Wilkerson
Hixson, Hamilton co., Tn.

http://soddymountainhawkwatch.blogspot.com

https://www.facebook.com/Soddy-Mountain-Hawk-Watch-1608121316117914/timeline"



We will be updating records and totals just after BW season, including the "BEST RECORDS" page.


Thank you, thank you, thank you...all you wonderful people with your helpful hawk watching eyes!

There are still more days to:

KEEP LOOKING UP!!!