Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 17:00:00 Total observation time: 8.5 hours
Official Counter: Brian Rusnica
Observers: Visitors: None
Weather: Brisk throughout, with strong and constant NE winds, slightly pushing ENE. Mostly overcast to start, to mostly sunny to end, with lots of cotton candy cumulus puffs to work with in between. Raptor Observations: A late rally of Broad-winged Hawks helped the Mount Watatic reach a significant milestone of 10,000 raptors for the season. My thanks goes out to all of our observers, visitors, and supporters for your encouragement this September. Today started off with an urgent morning lift off of Broad-wings. Scattered across the northern and eastern forests from our summit, small groups of Broad-wings got early lift and an immediate slingshot in the whipping wind. The first scan of the day right at 9am turned up a handful of hawks getting tossed south as they tried to gain altitude. Group after group repeated the same pattern, almost all of them passing from in front of the Uncanoonucs, dashing across the Wapack Ridge, and disappearing behind the summit. This flight line was very productive for the first two hours of the watch, culminating in a kettle of 25 just over Pack Monadnock. A few interesting moments were observed as well: a pack of accipitrine hawks, 3 Sharpies and 2 juvenile Coops, danced with each other for a brief moment directly over the east summit. Some talons were dropped but each bird seemed to get on with their journey before any real damage was done.
A curious mixed species group shared a thermal for nearly a minute - 3 BLACK VULTURE, 1 Turkey Vulture, 5 Broad-wings and 1 Sharpie. Quite the combo!
Bald Eagles were up and moving today, with 14 Southbound, 4 Northbound, and at least 5 seemingly staying put.
A Merlin gave a close pass to the decoy owl; an American Kestrel considered one, but settled for a midrange flyby.
The final highlight of today came after a few hours of quite dry skies this afternoon. A couple of times, I picked out a nearly-impossible-to-see stream of a few Broad-wings, cruising nearly due south between the cumulus clouds. But nothing major to report for the afternoon. At 4:45pm I started to pack up the decoy owl and my camp chair. At 4:55pm I gave one last scan to the northeast and happened to turn up a streaming adult Broad-wing, heading towards the sun and catching a nice late-afternoon glow. Behind that single streamer, a rogue wave of Broad-wings awaited in a tidy column - 175 birds appeared out of nowhere. No big movement announced their presence, and nothing else was flying afterward. But this huge kettle lingered over the Pawtuckaways for a glorious few moments, before they broke into a peel right over the summit and under the setting sun. Somewhere in that silent stream, our 10,000th migrant raptor of the season passed by. This is just my second time hitting this plateau in my twelve years as counter. What a great way to smash through that milestone. YES!
Non-raptor Observations: Common Raven 35 Double-crested Cormorant 17
Predictions: The Nor'easter this weekend seems more imminent and likely we will not be counting on Saturday/Sunday. NE winds increase tomorrow - I expect a raw and very windy Watatic, with winds increasing throughout the day. The morning flight may be of interest but conditions for kettles seem unlikely. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Brian Rusnica (<brian_rusnica...>) Mount Watatic information may be found at: http://www.massbird.org/emhw
