A front came through at 10:45am DST. There were a few hawks moving in advance
of the front with some getting caught up in the leading edge of it. After the
front moved through we were left with very clear skies with scattered clouds.
We felt as if we could see all the way to West Virginia. Even though we had
brisk NW winds all afternoon most of the hawks stayed away from the ridge and
had to be located by scanning. This was the first day we had to pull jackets
and sweatshirts out of our cars and some of us wished we had brought our
gloves.
We also counted Monarch butterflies and tallied more than 200.
Thursday 9/29/05 Season totals
Osprey 4 108
Bald Eagle 1 25
N. Harrier 0 20
Sharp-shinned 25 132
Cooper's 3 32
N. Goshawk 0 0
Red-shouldered 0 2
Broad-winged 19 2518
Red-tailed 5 97
Golden Eagle 0 1
A. Kestrel 2 33
Merlin 1 6
Peregrine 1 4
Unknown 5 54
Total 66 3118
Mike Purdy
Roanoke
