Hola Birders,
The past few days of Hawkwatch have been variable. The winds and recently the
temperature has dictated the tempo of our flight. Steady north winds on cool
(not cold) days seem to bring birds...everything else just ain't that great!
Today's best bird was a young Broad-winged Hawk seen soaring very early in the
morning headed south. This week we've seen good numbers of Goshawks in the past
few days hunting low and causing hell. The bird of the week, possibly the
month was a Juvenile Rough-legged Hawk seen on the 7th. The RLHA is actually
a pretty hard bird to see at Kiptopeke, Gyrfalcon being the only one that's any
harder. In contrast to this is the recent Turkey Vulture numbers. They've
exploded on the scene with big flights in the high 200s. Here's the breakdown
for today followed by season totals:
TUVU: 211; 2350
BLVU: 20; 715
OSPR: 2; 1710
BAEA: 6; 153
NOHA: 11; 497
SSHA: 15; 5087
COHA: 8; 1903
NOGO: 0; 7
RSHA: 17; 59
BWHA: 1; 990
RTHA: 33; 435
RLHA: 0;1
SWHA: 0; 4
GOEA: 0; 9
AMKE: 3; 2631
MERL: 1; 1598
PEFA: 0; 701
UnAcc: 15
UnBut: 1
Total: 328; 18866
please check out www.hawkcount.org for more detail on our and your other local
Virginia Hawkwatches.
Other birds:
We've seen a solid increase in finch numbers. A Crossbill flew over two day's
ago, mostly it's been a lot of new Goldfinch in the area. Siskin's and Purple
finch are common flyby's and at the feeder. Red-throated Loons came out of
nowhere and had a big flight today: 50+ were seen. Cave Swallow of both
Mexican and Caribbean subspecies were seen today along with many Tree Swallows.
Good day and Good birding
-Sam
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