This is a report on the Grandfather Mountain Hawkwatch by Jesse Pope who will be
the Bristol Bird Club’s 64th Annual Banquet speaker on Friday, October 2, at
6:30 p.m. at the Addilynn Memorial United Methodist Church in Bristol
Tennessee. Be sure and get your reservation in right away. Everyone is
welcome. You do not have to be a club member.
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From: Jesse Pope
Sent: Thursday, September 24, 2015 12:18 AM
To: carolinabirds
Subject: Record Day at Grandfather Mountain Hawkwatch
Hey C'birders,
It has been a slow year thus far for the Grandfather Mountain hawkwatch. We
have had lots of clear sky days, but mostly eye strain days making it difficult
to spot distant kettles. The days that have been favorable for flight this year
we have either had poor visibility, heavy cloud cover, OR blue skies with no
clouds which is equally difficult to spot birds. Today made up for the slow
month in a big way.
I finally compiled the hawk count data from Grandfather Mountain this evening.
It was an unbelievable day. Huge kettles streamed across the sky throughout the
afternoon from 2:00-5:00. The largest kettle highlights were 2:00pm-3:00pm:
600, 1400, 500, 160, and lots of smaller kettles; 3:00pm-4:00pm: 100,100, 1200
and several smaller kettles, 4:00pm-5:00pm: 4500, 125, 100, and several other
in one continuous stream within about 30 minutes.
It was certainly one of the most incredible hawkwatch experiences of my life!
Seeing so many huge kettles of broad-wings was something we haven't seen before
at Grandfather. I need to check my records, but I think our largest previous
day was 4200 broad-wings in 2007. That was the day that began my interest in
starting the Grandfather Mountain hawkwatch. Today more than doubled that
record, and absolutley crushed any record previously reported to hawkcount.org
for Grandfather Mountain. Tomorrow may be another pretty good day, at least in
the morning until the clouds roll in.
Below is a link to the full report.
https://www.hawkcount.org/day_summary.php?rsite=736
<https://www.hawkcount.org/day_summary.php?rsite=736&ryear=2015&rmonth=09&rday=23>
&ryear=2015&rmonth=09&rday=23
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Jesse Pope
Newland, NC
