Tussey Mountain Hawk Watch State College, Pennsylvania, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Mar 07, 2025 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 17:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours
Official Counter: Adam Bradley
Observers: Deb Rittelmann, Gabe Imler
Visitors: Deb Rittelmann arrived with some healthy snacks and provided good company on this sunny and blustery day. Gabe Imler the Program Director of Camp Blue Diamond also joined us to help spot migrating raptors. Fortunately, one distant GE was spotted taking the cross-ridge route high and out to the west while they were here. Later on, Gabe got to see many of our resident raptors including a lifer NOHA. Looking forward to his visit next Friday and I hope we get some closer GE’s then.
Deb Rittelmann Gabe Imler
3 hikers. 1 runner.
Weather: Trace amount of snow fell over Tussey Mountain overnight. Strong WNW winds peaking at 11:00 at 49kph. Visibility was excellent at 16 km with good views of Stone Mountain. Bluebird skies for the entire count with only a few clouds drifting over the ridge. Low temperature of -3C at 08:44 and a high of 7C by 13:00.
Raptor Observations: TV 1 (78) BE 3 (29) GE 1 (71) Total 5 (256)
GE A 11:17
Virtually non-existent flight with only 5 raptors migrating along Tussey Mountain. BE led the flight with 3 coming through. The one GE of the day was sky high going cross ridge and then off to the west. There is a high likelihood other GE’s were taking these sky high lines, but it was difficult to spot them in the blue skies. In fact, the one that was detected was due to scanning around the edges of the few clouds drifting over the ridge during the afternoon.
While migrating raptors weren’t moving through in great numbers our resident raptors were quite active along the ridge. At 09:41 while Deb Rittelman and I were discussing some of the finer points of the use of Trektellen our resident RTHA zipped into the forest behind the OP with furry prey in its clutches. It looked to be some kind of rodent or squirrel that it had secured. The RTHA’s by far were the most frequent raptor detected today kiting in the stiff WNW winds, gliding south along the ridge and occasionally soaring over Leading Ridge. Gabe and I got a good look at an immature NOHA flying south along the ridge as well.
Non-raptor Observations: Mourning Dove 2 Black Vulture 3 Turkey Vulture 4 American Crow 8 Common Raven 2 Black-capped Chickadee 3 Eastern Bluebird 1
Predictions: Mostly sunny, with a high near 40. Northwest wind 9 to 14 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph.
Trail conditions are superb and I won’t update on them any longer unless there is a reason to.
======================================================================== Report submitted by Adam Richardson (<poecile.gambeli...>) Tussey Mountain Hawk Watch information may be found at: tusseymountainspringhawkwatch.org/
