Tussey Mountain Hawk Watch State College, Pennsylvania, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Mar 13, 2025 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 17:00:00 Total observation time: 8.48 hours
Official Counter: Adam Bradley
Observers: George Young, Laurie McLaughlin, Margaret Brittingham, Mark McLaughlin, Nick Bolgiano, Peggy Wagoner, Phil Kress
Visitors: Phil Kress was out early this morning just shortly after my first GE passed by. I greatly appreciate his help spotting birds during the early morning part of the flight. I look forward to his visit later this season with his friend from WI. George Young from State College joined us as well in the morning and helped spot migrants as well. I also enjoyed hearing about his work with bird collision avoidance for the DOD back in the day. Peggy Wagoner joined me a little before noon and I really appreciate her catching the white base of the tail on our first of the season RLHA. Margaret Brittingham and her pup joined us and she was able to view many passing migrants during a busy hour of the flight. Laurie and Mark McLaughlin, my gracious hosts while here rotated in later in the afternoon and I appreciated their fresh eyes. Laurie found our 4th NOHA of the season on a non-traditional flight line for the day on the cross ridge run through the gap. She also picked out several migrating buteos and GE’s. Amy Bergstrom visited during a good peak in the flight and got to witness some of the diverse flight we had today.
George Young Phil Kress Peggy Wagoner Nick Bolgiano Margaret Brittingham Laurie and Mark McLaughlin Amy Bergstrom
1 hiker.
Weather: It was quite cool and humid this morning. Strong SE winds made things even feel cooler at 19kph. Visibility and the cloud ceiling were quite low at the start of the count. By 13:00 the clouds burned off rapidly and the visibility increased to 12km. Low temperature of 3C at 09:00 and a high of 14C by 15:00.
Raptor Observations: TV 4 (89) BE 7 (44) NH 1 (4) SS 6 (19) CH 1 (9) RS 3 (23) RT 22 (74) RL 1 GE 18 (109) AK 3 (4) UB 1 (6) UR 1 (5) Total 68 (398)
GE A 09:02, A 09:26, A 10:24, A 11:50, A 11:54, U 12:12, A 12:12, A 12:34, A 13:46, A 13:50, A 13:55, A 13:55, A 14:04, A 15:35, A 15:52, A 16:51, A 16:58, A 17:00
First GE was spotted the minute I arrived at the OP. It was on the S side of the cut. I believe every GE of the day was parallel to the S side of the ridge at varying distance out from the ridge. Oddly enough, just about every buteo and accipiter split off the ridge near the gap and shot N of the OP. The flight lines by and large were very similar for the entire day which made getting on migrants easy.
It was hard to have time to scan for resident raptors, but of course the Leading Ridge RTHA was on territory throughout the flight. I also spotted to adult BE’s way out over Stone Valley throughout the day.
Non-raptor Observations: Mourning Dove 3 Killdeer 3 Turkey Vulture 8 American Crow 2 Common Raven 8 Black-capped Chickadee 7 Tufted Titmouse 1 White-breasted Nuthatch 1 Eastern Bluebird 1 American Robin 1 Red-winged Blackbird 5
Predictions: Patchy fog before 9am. Otherwise, partly sunny, with a high near 60. Calm wind becoming southeast 5 to 7 mph in the afternoon. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Adam Richardson (<poecile.gambeli...>) Tussey Mountain Hawk Watch information may be found at: tusseymountainspringhawkwatch.org/
