Visitors: Jody from West Boylston stopped by to chat. The Quabbin Regional HS girls field hockey team hiked up the mountain on a team-building excercise. Hundreds of sightseers hiked, biked and drove up to look around. We had good conversations about our work with quite a few people.
Weather: Another day of solid southerly winds (8-12 SSW with 16-18 mph gusts), but with higher humidity than the last few days and a solid low cloud cover (about 4,000 ft AMSL) to start. Blue patches began to appear around noon and the cloud base rose to around 5,000 ft. With the added humidity, the haze hid Mt Greylock, the VT mountains and the more distant NH mountains.
Raptor Observations: Yet another 0 migrant day. If any raptors were thinking of moving today, they were undoubtedly discouraged by the solid SSW winds that lasted all day. The low cloud cover kept most of the local raptors down until almost mid-day. The raptor highlight of the day was a Peregrine Falcon that circled up on the west side and then took a steep dive at something out of our sight below. Non-migrating raptors: TV - 6 Broad-winged Hawk - 3 (the 3 same juveniles that we've been seeing the last few days) Red-tailed Hawk - 1 (AD) Peregrine Falcon - 1
Non-raptor Observations: Non-raptors: Another of today's highlights was a kettle of 18 Ravens that rose up on the east side in the early afternoon. Chimney Swift - 6 Tree Swallow - 3 Comm Raven - 18 Gray Catbird - 1 E Towhee - 1
Predictions: The last of the southerly flow of air should shift to a more westerly direction by early afternoon, but that will also likely bring some rain showers. The morning winds should be under 5 mph and it will be interesting to see if any birds take advantage of that to get moving. ======================================================================== Report submitted by ERIC MUELLER (<ericmueller1912...>) Wachusett Mountain information may be found at: http://www.massbird.org/emhw
