Observation start time: 08:15:00 Observation end time: 14:00:00 Total observation time: 5.75 hours
Official Counter: Bill Rasku, Eric Mueller
Observers: Bill Rasku, Eric Mueller
Visitors: Aprroximately 30 hikers who passed by or stopped to take in the view. When I checked the summit at noon, there were several hundred people there, several cars waiting for parking spots, and people debarking from the ski lift in droves, so the day's total likely exceeded 1,000 people.
Weather: A very windy day with WNW to W winds averaging 16 mph and many gusts to 30 mph. A nearly cloudless sky with low barometric pressure. There was some haze in the morning, but that dissipated as the relative humidity dropped into the high 20s to low 30 percent range in the early afternoon. Weather conditions shown below are estimates of what was happening at the summit.
Raptor Observations: With so many birds flying low yesterday in the strong, gusty winds, and noticeably stronger winds today, we decided to move our observation point from the summit fire tower down to the North Road overlook, which is lower down on the NW slope of Mt Wachusett. It is more sheltered, so we could use our scopes without too much shaking, and more birds were visible here as they flew low around the mountain. We had a reasonable turnout of TVs, Bald Eagles and Sharpies, as well as small numbers of other species. The surprise of the day was a late adult Broad-wing that flew low over us.
Non-migrating raptors: TV - 6 (minimum number - repeated views all day) Bald Eagle - 6 (3 Ad, 2 Imm, 1 Juv) Sharp-shinned Hawk - 2 Cooper's Hawk - 1 Red-tailed Hawk - 3 (minimum number - repeated views all day)
Non-raptor Observations: Non-raptors: Canada Goose - 499 (19 skeins, estimated numbers on several of the larger skeins) Blue Jay - 2 Comm Raven - 4 BC Chickadee - 2 Yellow-rumped Warbler - 1
Predictions: The forecasts for Sunday and Monday are for rain both days, so we won't conduct a watch either day unless the weather changes. ======================================================================== Report submitted by ERIC MUELLER (<ericmueller1912...>) Wachusett Mountain information may be found at: http://www.massbird.org/emhw
