Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours
Official Counter: David Brown
Observers: Carol Spease, Emerald Lin, Frank Rohrbacher, Holly Merker, Kim Steininger, Lana Glass, Martin Karel, Meghan Donnelly, Sheryl Johnson
Visitors: 12
Weather: Overcast with a little bit of blue sky showing through at times. Light and variable winds, mostly northerly.
Raptor Observations: With overcast skies and not much wind it took a while for the flight to get going. Between 9-11am we had a total of 15 red-shouldered hawks. By late-morning we knew something unusual was happening when we had 52 red-shoulders in an hour. The flight slowed down with only ten in the noon hour before coming back even stronger with 88, 86, and 24 red-shoulders respectively in the final three hours of the count. This brought us to a record total of 275 RED-SHOULDERED HAWKS! This was more than twice the previous single day record of 118. It is also an unusually late date for a record flight, with the previous top two days occurring in late October. The flight was high altitude with mostly small groups but some groups as large as twenty! Spotting was greatly aided by the cloud cover.
Quaker Ridge in Connecticut also got off to a very slow start this season for red-shoulders, which usually peak in late-October and early-November, but since November 15th has had a few huge flights including one of 300+. Our two sites are consistently the top two fall hawk watches in the world for Red-shouldered Hawks and are both now only a few red-shoulders away from record seasons.
Other raptor highlights today included 5 Northern Harriers and 28 Red-tailed Hawks.
Non-raptor Observations: 26 Snow Geese, Common Loon, Great Blue Heron, 2 Common Ravens, EVENING GROSBEAK, 10,000 Common Grackles. https://ebird.org/checklist/S285355537
Predictions: Tomorrow: Cloudy. High 56F. Winds SW at 5-10mph. A less favorable wind direction, but fairly light. Could be another decent Red-shouldered Hawk day. Expect light to moderate migration otherwise.
Saturday: Morning showers then partly cloudy. High 54F. Winds NNW at 10-15mph. Decent conditions once it clears up. Expect moderate migration.
Sunday: Sun and a few clouds. High 54F. Winds W at 5-10mph. Expect moderate migration. ======================================================================== Report submitted by David Brown (<davidebrownpa...>) Ashland Nature Center information may be found at: www.delnature.org
