Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours
Official Counter: Brian Rusnica
Observers: Visitors: None
Weather: Almost frigid at the trailhead today, but the summit was warm and cloudless, with light winds starting from the NE and swinging around to the SE by end of day, but rarely more than a weak puff. Raptor Observations: A handful of Broad-wings were up at 9:30am EDT, gently soaring over the summit and peeling off to the South. The flight was mostly just dribs and drabs until around 11:15am, when I was alerted by a huge mass of birds off to the eastern horizon. Incredibly (and unfortunately for the count), this group was entirely composed of Common Ravens, some 55 birds, paired up and tail chasing all over the sky. To me this looked perhaps the meeting of two "clans" of Ravens, as that count is more than double of what I've been seeing this month. After dropping the Ravens, I caught a swirl of movement almost directly under the sun and found a huge kettle of 80 Broad-wings, our largest group of the season. This kind of action had me then scanning furiously for the next several hours, looking for another. Unfortunately that was the only big group of the day. My "ice fishing" mission in the crystalline blue skies of today was mostly unproductive. Still, all being said, pulling out 200 Broad-wings in sub-optimal winds is not a bad result. One of the many modern mysteries of Mount Watatic is how to count and separate migrant Bald Eagles now that they are so prevalent in Massachusetts. Today I got a little bit of clarity on just how many "local" Bald Eagles might be within eyeshot of Watatic - when a kettle of 11 Bald Eagles appeared way off to the northeast late in the afternoon. It was a swirling mix of half adults and half darker birds. This direction is where we most commonly see local Eagles getting air. These birds were busy tail-chasing, interacting, sharing a thermal, but doing anything but migrating. Today, I settled on 11 locals, 3 northbound birds, 8 southbound birds, for a net total of 5 migrants for the count.
The first BLACK VULTURE of the season passed high overhead in the early afternoon.
Predictions: Warmer the next couple days. Tomorrow's winds will be from the WSW-SW and moderate. We do expect some cloud cover which will be a welcome break from the last 2 days. Not the most productive forecast but the closer we are to the center of peak Broad-wing migration, the less that may matter. We'll see! We're also currently eyeing Friday as the next optimal forecast day. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Brian Rusnica (<brian_rusnica...>) Mount Watatic information may be found at: http://www.massbird.org/emhw
