The morning started off cold on Tussey Mountain. NW winds at 6-11kph to
start at 08:00. The NW winds peaked at 20-28kph by 13:00. By the close of
the count the winds had shifted to the SW at 6-11kph which is likely why
the last few hours of the count saw another pulse of migrating raptors.
Visibility was excellent with views for the entire day to Stone Mountain.
Blue skies for the entire day made detecting sky-high BW’s a chore. Low
temperature of -1C at 08:00 and a high of 17C by 16:00.
Raptor Notes
TV 3 (273) OS 5 (39) BE 1 (93) SS 3 (155) BW 83 (904) RT 8 (259) AK 2 (60)
UF 1 (2) UR 3 (38) Total 107 (2118)
Once it warmed up enough in Stone Valley the flight got underway at 09:00
with 16 migrants moving through. BW led the flight with a total of 83
coming through. Almost all of the raptors on the count were picked up by
scope scanning Stone Valley and Mountain. The flight appeared to lull in
the 11:00 hour, but I have a hunch BW’s were going sky high in the blue
sky. This likely made them next to impossible to detect. I completely
lucked out in the 13:00 hour and got on the largest kettle of the day over
Stone Valley. Again, I was scoping Stone Mountain and noticed the kettle. I
then went to the bottom of the kettle and started picking up the BW’s
streaming in from Stone Mountain to the bottom of the kettle so I could get
a good count. Suddenly what seemed to be another slow hour had some good
numbers on the boards. It wasn’t until the 15:00 hour that I started to see
BW’s up on Tussey Mountain. I have found that once the sun is directly over
the ridge it gets more traffic. I was thinking of calling the day at 17:00,
but after picking up another 8 BW’s I decided to close out the count at
17:30 with 4 more raptors.
Resident raptors were quite active making use of the excellent thermals. At
11:20 the adult RT was kiting on Leading Ridge. At 11:54 the Stone Valley
COHA was out performing its display flight over the power line cut in Stone
Valley. At 12:23 the immature RT was spotted moving S along the top of
Tussey Mountain. At 15:27 the first resident BW of the season was detected
to the S of the OP, then it moved down onto Leading Ridge. At 17:05 a local
SS flew the exact same line as the BW noted above.
Non-raptor Notes
The WITU was getting rowdy near the cut. Nice pulse of COLO early in the
morning. DCCO’s got in on the movement as well. First BARS of the season,
aka micro falcon. RCKI started to get riled up, but moved on.
Wild Turkey 1
Mourning Dove 3
Common Loon 26
Double-crested Cormorant 17
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 5
Red-bellied Woodpecker 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Pileated Woodpecker 2
Northern Flicker (Yellow-shafted) 1
American Crow 2
Common Raven 1
Black-capped Chickadee 7
Tree Swallow 8
Barn Swallow 1
Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1
Golden-crowned Kinglet 1
White-breasted Nuthatch 2
Brown Creeper 1
Eastern Bluebird 1
American Robin 3
American Goldfinch 11
Field Sparrow 1
Brown-headed Cowbird 2
Common Grackle 2
Yellow-rumped Warbler (Myrtle) 1
Visitors
None
2 hikers.
Next Day Forecast
Mostly sunny, with a high near 76. Light southeast wind becoming south 5 to
10 mph in the afternoon. Winds could gust as high as 22 mph.
