Broad-winged Hawk Flying North??

These grow In abundance along the banks and roadsides, near the watch.

 

Tami King kept stats today, and reports them in the HMANA chart style, which is what she was used to in SC.  At one time, Bill Haley also reported to the HMANA in the early years. On her chart, are listed many of the Western Hawks as well, because many of the sites reporting to HMANA are western locations.  Differences include that the weather is reported in Celcius.  We wish to thank her for sending the stats today.

 

When I arrived, Tami commented on how socked in the Valley had been when she arrived. She noted that our released Red-tail, Victoria Fay was no longer sitting in her overnight perch.  Alix questioned about her, and we noted that someone had visited the watch after we left, evidenced by the fact there were beer bottles left behind.  Ugh.  But we hadn't seen her.  However, as I left about 1:30, traveling down the mountain as I passed under the wires that go up to hawk-watch hill, I caught a quick glimpse of a small Red-tailed Hawk  flying up from the grassy ground beside the road to about half way up the bluff, toward the watch site.  I really only saw the red tail and that something seemed to be in the claws, very small.  But it was too co-incidental to not be our released bird, as Alix and I discussed.   I was pleased to see her near the traffic, yet flying away from it, up to the trees.  Wish she would take a liking to the top of the bluff instead though.

Victoria Fay seeks a hiding place

 

Winds today were often variable, but mostly out of the SE and S.  Birds we noticed were flying SW along a very similar path whether BW's or Accipiters, of which there were several. One of our day birds was our Red-headed Woodpecker.  And Tami notes the Monarch count.

 

 

Sunday

Sept. 24. 2017

 

Counts were:

OS 1

SS 1

CH  3

BW  12

PG  1

Total Raptors - 18

 

Note: a lot of other sites reported low figures as well.  But some had super numbers. Such as Rock Fish Gap -1011BWs.   Jimmy noticed  that we only were one BW off from Corpus Christi's count on BWs yesterday. LOL  And notice Tami's notes about our one odd BW. Never saw that before on our watch, in fact never at a watch.  But we had to consider the possibility that we just last week released 5 BW's into the "local population."   Tami also spoke today, of seeing such things with hawks at her former sites, only to notice later they left and proceeded S in migration. They always thought the birds had stopped for lunch.  We never see that, and any BWs that have turned N, generally caught a thermal and rode it to the top for lift and proceeded S. So, today we saw one of those wacky firsts for the site.  If someone else has noticed it during their hours on the watch,  please chime in. LOL

 

 

Tami writes:

" also Unusual Broad-winged Hawk Behavior: In the early afternoon we saw a Broad-winged Hawk come in from the north, head south then turn around head back north and dive into the trees. Around 4 PM a Broad-winged Hawk came up from the area the earlier bird went down, fly south then turn north and descend into the valley.

There were also 27 Monarch Butterflies.

Keep Looking UP!

Tami"