Observation start time: 10:00:00 Observation end time: 14:00:00 Total observation time: 4 hours
Official Counter: Eric Mueller
Observers: Jon Skinner, Tom Gottschang
Visitors: Many thanks to Tom Gottschang and Jon Skinner for their help today. Approximately 20 hikers and several dogs walked by, plus a cross-country skier who was headed to the summit.
Weather: Cold (28-32 F) with partly sunny skies and moderate West winds (4-7 mph at the overlook, but 12-16 mph winds reported at Worcester airport.) About 5" inches of snow on the ground from Thursday's storm. The visibility wasn't as good as we've seen lately - there was either haze or light snow to our north that blocked visibility into VT. A layer of low-ish scattered clouds (3000 ft base) to our north covered the top of Mt Monadnock for the first 30 minutes, and then steadily rose throughout the session to about 5000 ft.
Raptor Observations: We observed from the North Rd overlook. Migrating raptors began to appear around 10:50 with a Golden Eagle (always a nice way to start the day!) followed at 11:35 by a distant UB, and finally an adult Bald Eagle at 12:58. The Golden had a bright white tail with a thick black terminal band, and kind of splotchy white marks on the underside of the wings, so it might have been an older juvenile or a young immature bird. This was the 8th Golden of the season which ties our site record set last year.
We just need 1 more migrating bird to move this year's count out of the bottom 10 counts of all-time here.
The local Red-tails were fairly active most of the session, and Bald Eagles made a few appearances.
Non-migrating raptors: Bald Eagle - 3 (Ad - 2, Imm - 1) Red-tailed Hawk - 4 (all adults as far as we could tell)
Non-raptor Observations: Non-raptors: (includes birds that Tom saw at the summit and on the way down) Canada Goose - 85 (37 + 48) Comm Merganser - 9 duck sp - 7 gull sp - 1 Downy WP - 1 Pileated WP - 1 Red-bellied WP - 1 Amer Crow - 28 Comm Raven - 1 BC Chickadee - 2 T Titmouse - 10 WB Nuthatch - 2 GC Kinglet - 2 DE Junco - 10 Snow Bunting - 1
Predictions: Sunday's forecast calls for strong WSW winds, so I don't plan on conducting a watch then. Monday or Tuesday are possibilities. ======================================================================== Report submitted by ERIC MUELLER (<ericmueller1912...>) Wachusett Mountain information may be found at: http://www.massbird.org/emhw
More site information at hawkcount.org:https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=228
