Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8.23 hours
Official Counter: Brian Rusnica
Observers: Dan Lounsbury, Jon Skinner
Visitors: Thanks to returning friends of the watch Jon Skinner, Kim Hewitt, Dan Lounsbury, Billy Hickey, Lizzie Crawford, and Rick Quimby.
We also welcomed some excellent newcomers to Watatic: Josephine Kaminaga, Jen Mortensen, and Kyle Quinn.
Thanks to everyone for making today's special moments possible!
Weather: Cool and partly cloudy throughout, with skies mostly overcast by end of watch. Winds very light out of the NE to start, and very weak out of the E/SE by afternoon. Raptor Observations: An explosive number of Broad-winged Hawks made their way through New England today, and we tallied 3,820 total raptors for our biggest migration day since 2022, and my second highest-day count as counter (12 seasons). We had a great time picking out kettles and streams throughout the day. Early on, it was two nearly impossible-to-see speck kettles of Broad-wings over the eastern skyline that propelled our count to 450 birds by 11:30am. In the next hour, the flight line pushed slightly west and we had nice looks at Broad-wings coming in right over the summit. But soon it was apparent that the flight traffic pushed even farther as we were soon picking up streams between big column kettles behind the true summit. Just after 12pm we passed 1,000 birds for the day and were quite happy with what we were getting in the gentle winds and well-textured clouds creating lots of visual references to cite as we tried to get each other on birds. The 1pm hour slowed a bit, when we were notified that Pack Monadnock had a massive hawk movement on their hands. Our scoping and scanning efforts were re-invigorated, and soon we were picking out more speck hawk-clouds off to the west, kettling often in the same thermal that rose up just to the south of the "summit spruce." The 2pm hour wasn't full of the greatest views, but the count grew to 2,000 birds.
Then, from 3pm-3:15pm, a colossal column of hawks, continuously fed by stream after generous stream, formed in the same spot just behind the true summit. These birds were far from close, but the density of the kettles was absolutely apparent using our 8x glass. Jon Skinner did the heavy lifting for us, glued to the scope for the duration of the movement, counting a whopping total of 1,086 Broad-winged Hawks migrating past our site in that single movement. One of the most exciting moments of our watch in years.
We continued to have persistent movement until the last kettle of 25 birds failed to get lift off the Wapack Ridge around 4:05pm. What a terrific flight.
American Kestrels (24), Sharp-shinned Hawks (64), and Northern Harrier (7) had their highest counts of the season.
The first 2 Turkey Vultures of the year migrated high late in the day, heading SW with an Osprey in tow.
Predictions: Rain should arrive in the morning and persist throughout the day. We will monitor when the rain starts, and if a multi-hour watch is possible, I'll take a look at hiking up. Back at it on Monday for sure. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Brian Rusnica (<brian_rusnica...>) Mount Watatic information may be found at: http://www.massbird.org/emhw
