[TN-Bird] Soddy Mountain Hawk Watch

From 9-8 thru 9-15 we saw 79 Broad-winged hawks.
Monday morning (9-19) Bill and I saw another 124 Broad-wings.

The following is an e-mail detailing our weekend at the hawk watch.

Jimmy Wilkerson
Hixson, TN.


Soddy Mountain, TN hawk report, 9/18/05, 10:30-5:45 EDST, cloud cover 1% in 
the morning to 60% when we left, temperature 74-86F, barometric pressure 
30.13-30.09, winds light most of am, NW to N 2-10 MPH in the afternoon. 
Observers: 
Bill Haley, Jim Wilkerson, Harold Birch.
 
After yesterday's 267 Broad-wings, we got an even better flight today. Things 
were promising in the morning when we saw several small groups of hawks for a 
total of 22 from 10:30-noon. However, a drought from 12:00-1:30 had us 
wondering. The old mid-day lull! Turns out we needn't have worried. We got only 
11 
hawks in the 1:00-2:00 hour. From 2:00-3:00 we saw 232 hawks with our biggest 
groups being 47 at 2:41, 141 at 2:50, and 26 at 2:58. From 3:00-4:00 we saw 133 
Broad-wings, with only one large kettle of 42 at 3:14. Many of the hawks from 
2:00-4:00 were straight up and very high. Harold had to leave at 4:00, but 
Jimmy and I stayed. Things really got interesting then! We had 41 BW at 4:00, 
66 
at 4:38, and 27 at 4:54. Final total for the 4:00-5:00 hour was 170. We 
usually leave around 5:00pm, as most days the flight is over by then, but we 
were 
glad we stayed today. We saw 45 at 5:04, 55 at 5:10, 39 at 5:15 and 58 at 5:28. 
A good final 45 minute total of 206! The last hour and a half we got some 
wonderful looks at close-in kettles and low-flying single birds. Nice! This 
will 
put us up near 1100 Broad-wings for the season so far.
 
We counted two more Osprey, a Sharp-shinned and an American Kestrel in the 
last hour. 

Final total, Soddy Mountain, TN hawk lookout, 9/18/05:
 Osprey - 3
 Sharp-shinned Hawk - 3
 Broad-winged Hawk - 774
 American Kestrel - 1
 
Bill Haley, compiler

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