BECAUSE OF THE RUNON....

Because of the runon, I have had some difficulty posting Bill's posts. So I am going to try to copy the graph at the end of the month from Hawk Migration Association of America. At that time I will post updates in the blog of our grand totals. For now, I remind you, I cannot update the sidebars with this year's totals. But everytime I have checked, the pages aresearchable. so please use the tabs or the drop down menu on your phone to see pages to past records, ID helps, best numbers and especially directions. I will attempt before next year to get a new website up and running. And since I am recovering the posts as quickly as I am able without spending all day everyday doing it, I will be able by then to start putting the recovered pages up as archived with links to this site. Until then, I will copy paste the last few entries to our facebook site, mostly copy pastes of Bill's own facebook posts, or emails to us: ***Bill posted this story to his timeline. A little let down after his big day. "After 4,070 raptors yesterday, I awoke to the second worst weather condition for a hawkwatcher. The first? A sustained driving rain. The second? A clear blue sky! And it was to remain that way. ALL. DAY. LONG. It is incredibly difficult to find hawks flying at a very high altitude in a blue sky. Rising columns of heated air, called thermals, boom on a day like today and hawks ride those thermals to great heights. They are mostly white underneath, which makes it even harder for us earthbound hawkwatchers to see them. Yesterday we had plenty of nice clouds, and they make a nice backdrop for spotting hawks. I arrived at 11:30 and began scanning. A kettle of 27 Broad-winged Hawks was found before noon, thanks to the PDL principle. That's Pure Dumb Luck. The hawkwatcher's friend on a day such as this. It was six minutes into the next hour when one Broadie was located, thanks to the Blind Hog rule. You've probably heard the old saying,"Even a blind hog finds an acorn every now and then". Yep, that was it. For the next four hours, I scanned the empty blue sky. Were there hawks flying? Almost certainly. Did I find any more? No. I tried the "Harold Birch technique", keeping my binoculars on vultures or passing airplanes, hoping I might see hawks in the background. (You'd be surprised how often this works.) Not today. I tried a proven hawk bait, my signature peanut butter and dill pickle sandwich. (You'd be even more surprised how often this has produced hawk sightings). No takers today. I spent a lot of time scanning areas where hundreds of hawks flew yesterday. It was an empty blue desert today. Final total: 28 Broad-winged Hawks in 4.5 hours." All you can do is KEEP LOOKING UP!!! *** Copying Bill's own facebook post for todays totals. "My last bird of the day after a 7 hour stint on the Soddy Mountain Hawkwatch was an adult Bald Eagle (BE) that glided directly over me less than 50 feet up. Nice ending! I was encouraged this morning to see some cirrus cloud "mares tails". Thin clouds, but better than yesterday's zero clouds. The clouds increased during the day, which was even better. First hawk of the morning was a female Northern Harrier (NH), the first of fall 2020. Harriers are one of my favorites! They fool you into thinking they are Turkey Vultures with the way they hold their wings in a very shallow V, called a dihedral. Then they give themselves away by flapping every now and again, something Turkey Vultures seldom do. They have long wings and long tails and a white patch on their rump, which can be hard to see from underneath. My friend Harold Birch joined me just in time to see it. We spotted another one over the valley about an hour later. We added another new species for the fall when an Osprey (OS) was seen shortly after 1:00. An experienced hawkwatcher can ID Ospreys at extreme distances, just by the way they hold their wings in an M-shaped configuration. Are you sensing that hawk identification relies on recognizing subtle clues from their manner of flight? As I stated earlier, it is a VERY specialized form of birding. Key to other hawks: Sharp-shinned (SS), Broad-winged (BW). Final totals, 9-22-20: NH 2, OS 1, BE 2, SS 1, BW 16 Also counted 59 migrating Monarchs butterflies." Welcome Harold back to the hill! KEEP LOOKING UP! *** Bill sent us an email, of his results before the rain began. Rained out today, of course: "Jimmy and Cynthia; It was a poor day on the lookout. I was there from 9:30-1:30. Although there was some clearing from 11 to 1 dropping to 50%, the hawks weren't moving. It seems like they didn't want to fly into the rain coming towards us from the most recent hurricane. When I left at 1:30, cloud cover was almost 100%. It was 11:49 before my first countable bird, a Sharp-shinned Hawk, flew low over the lookout. It had a full crop,which indicated a recent meal. Maybe it ate one of Sue's feeder birds for breakfast before continuing south. I only saw two Broad-wings, both at extreme altitude, at 11:58 and 12:19. Although my aching shoulders could attest to lots of scanning overhead, I could find no more. The only other hawk seen was a Northern Harrier at 12:01. I counted 19 migrant Monarch butterflies. Bill " KEEP LOOKING UP!!!! Thx for checking in, C