Sharpie's Breakfast Break

Bill Haley sent today's Report -

 

"Jimmy;

 

I spent from 8:30 to 11:00 on the lookout this morning, 10/9/15. Figured maybe some hawks would be trying to get through before the front and the predicted rain arrived. I began with 40% cloud cover. Clouds had increased to 60% by 10:00 and with a large black bank of clouds approaching from the NW, cloud cover had reached 85% when I left at 11:00.

 

First hawk of the day was a Sharp-shin that flew along the top of the north ridge at 9:15. A little to the left of the dip it did a maneuver and caught a small bird, landing in the top of a pine to eat its meal. I had it in sight there until around 9:50. I have to wonder if it became my 9:52 bird, because I looked for it after that bird flew on south and it wasn’t there anymore.

 

8:30: wind calm, visib. 35K, clouds 40%, temp. 65 F, humidity 87%, baro. 30.12 and rising

9:00: wind SSW 1-2, visib. 30K, clouds 45%, temp. 67 F, hum. 84%, baro. 30.14 and rising

10:00 wind SE 1-5, visib. 40K, clouds 60%, temp. 68 F, hum. 87%, baro. 30.15 and rising

11:00 wind SE 2-8, clouds 85%, no other weather readings taken

 

Sharp-shinned Hawk: (1) 9:23, (1) 9:52, (1) 9:59, (1) 10:27, (1) 10:42, (1) 10:47   - Total  6 SS.

 

Monarch butterfly 4

Blue Jay 6

N. Flicker 2

 

There were a lot of Chimney Swifts - between 25 and 30 over the north ridge on a couple of occasions. Guess they will be gone south in a couple of weeks.

 

Got some great looks at a male Pine Warbler and a Palm Warbler playing in some of the small pine trees around the lookout.

 

Bill Haley"

 

Bill keeps up with all the birds he sees or hears.  Which most birders will do.  I do most of my birding by ear,  while Hawking. In other words, I call off to Jimmy, who is our recorder, what I hear.  I seldom change the focus on my binocs to look at birds, because it means you have to refocus on the hawk range. If you are seeing birds way out at a certain focus, it may be hard to find that focal length again, thus you miss hawks.  But we have learned to focus on a specific point out beyond the ridge, sometimes as far out as the furthest cell tower, and we do it often during the day.  It's important to have an extreme distance into focus, especially in blue skies.  It is one of the things we explain to visitors when they come.  A part of our mini-education we try to give everyone. LOL

 

A second note today, is that Jimmy contacted a hawk watch in Alabama, Millcreek Hawk Watch.  Here is an excerpt from the email that tells us a little about them. Hope to stay in contact with them for years to come.  Might visit them next year.

 

Jimmy sent them this note:

 

"Sent: Mon, 5 Oct 2015 02:23:53 +0000 (UTC)
Subject: Mill Creek Rd Hawk Watch

Hi Jackie & Carrol;

It was so nice to find your hawk watch site on hawkcount.org. I am Jimmy
Wilkerson. My wife and 3 or 4 friends have been counting hawks for going
on 23 years at Soddy Mountain Hawk Watch near Chattanooga, TN. We thought
we were the most southern hawk watch in the east until I found your site.
We're glad your there!!! And such impressive numbers you have this season.

We used to report to HMANA back a few years ago when we had to make daily
paper records and mail them in at the end of ever season. The new site seems
so much more easier. I'm thinking about joining hawkcount.org so we can have
a place to report out numbers to. It seems a waste of out time and records
not to do so.

Thanks for hearing me out! Hawk watching is such a specialized form of bird
watching. There aren't many of us out there who have the time to count these
hawks. Thanks for your commitment.

Jimmy"

 

 

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They responded:

"Thank you for contacting us. A pleasure to hear from other hawk lovers like us. We have been watching for about 12 years now but not reporting that long. We used to go to Blue Ridge Parkway in September to sit and watch for a few days each year. then one year we could not make it up in Sept and that is the year things changed for us. We realized we were seeing lots and lots of hawks passing right over our house and hayfield. The next year we took a chance at watching at home again and counted several thousand in a two week period. And that was the end of the September trek to the BRP.  We feel so blessed to be in their flight path and look forward to this each year. we now call it our stay-cation. Everything is put on the idle and we watch the sky all day. We LOVE this time of year.

It is so nice to meet fellow hawkers. We have been in Chattanooga (last yr) at this watch time and watched hawks and 2 eagles from our sidewalk downtown. Folks thought we were crazy for being so excited about seeing some hawks. That is because they have never seen a kettle of the swirling magnificent birds. We have wondered why no-one in your area was reporting and wondering how the birds track from the Appalachian range down to us. We are in the foothills a bit nnw of Birmingham."

*********************

We have put them onto our Blog and Facebook pages. 

Isn't it wonderful that they can watch from a hayfield.  We have always known that some of the kettles of BWs, which we see from the watch, are forming into rising thermals over either the road way, or over the fields and farmlands near us.  It's where the sun warms air most quickly.  Check out their counts on Hawkcount.org,  Mill Creek Rd Hawk Watch.  Not all watches will have reports every day. 

Thank you, Bill for your report today, and thanks to fellow hawk-watchers, Jackie and Carrol, in Alabama.  Always nice to get to know our hawk watching friends.

 

I may not get to report daily for about a week, sooooo, don't give up on us. LOL

 

KEEP LOOKING UP!!!!

 

Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson