Bake Oven Knob 2 miles North of Germansville, Pennsylvania, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Aug 29, 2025 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8.32 hours
Official Counter: AB
Observers: Cynthia Berger, Doug Burton, Ed Sinkler, Hannah Mahar, Ron Kline
Visitors: An all-star crew of legendary PA hawk watchers helped tremendously with racking up a superb early season count. Hannah Mahar was up early. Her excellent spotting was greatly appreciated and some may recognize her as Bake Oven Knobs lead counter last season. She is the lead counter at Route 183 this year and hopes some of the Bake Oven spotters come out to visit her this season. Cynthia Berger was up early too and was great help spotting as always. Ed Sinkler arrived a little later and I asked him if that meant Doug Burton would be arriving shortly. Ed said he didn’t think so, but indeed Doug showed up not long after. Which we then decided would be when the flight would get underway. The superb spotting skills by all and comradery made for another superb day at Bake Oven Knob.
Randy Kreimoyer was up early and kept me company during the slow start. I hope he makes it back up again soon. Pat and Daniel Christ arrived right on time with some of the first BW’s visible why they got settled in.
65 hikers
Weather: Light and variable winds to start the count, but by 09:00 there wasn’t a breath of wind for the next two hours. By 11:00 the winds were out of the NNW at 1-3mph. At 13:00 they increased to 4-7mph out of the N. Good visibility to start the count, but by 11:00 some haze developed over the Lehigh Valley. This limited the visibility to 10 miles. It wasn’t until 14:00 when the haze began to lift again and the visibility improved. High cirrus clouds to begin the count, but stratus began to develop early in the morning. Later in the day cumulus clouds formed and began to burn off by 14:00. Low temperature of 16C at 09:00 and a high of 22C by noon. The big surprise with the temperature was that it started off warmer and was getting quite hot by 08:00 before cooling rapidly in the 09:00 hour. This likely had some impact on the slow start to the flight.
Raptor Observations: South Lookout
8.32 hours (113.18)
BV 4 (34) TV 16 (177) OS 13 (50) BE 5 (55) NH 1 (2) SS 4 (22) BW 24 (86) RT 1 (28) Total 68 (487)
BAEA (5): 11:10 I, 11:10 A, 11:41 I, 13:12 I, 14:19 A
Interesting day with no migrants detected until the 10:00 hour with BW’s leading the flight. The flight ramped up steadily peaking in the noon hour with 14 raptors moving through and some welcome diversity. A nice grey ghost (NH) was spotted for the discerning hawk watchers. Looking back at the winds through the day the North Lookout could have been utilized.
Resident raptors where not very active up on Blue Mountain during the survey. An immature and adult RT were seen a couple times kiting over the Notch and occasionally parachuting down onto prey in the bowl. A female AK was spotted flying up ridge along the Notch at 12:31.
Non-raptor Observations: RTHU’s continue to move through in good numbers. I enjoy seeing them in the field of view when scanning for raptors out over the bowl. I even spotted two flying together. One was detected following a dragonfly. Yet another zipped by to get a closer look at BC the decoy.
Wild Turkey 1 Mourning Dove 1 Chimney Swift 1 Ruby-throated Hummingbird 18 Red-bellied Woodpecker 1 Downy Woodpecker 1 Pileated Woodpecker 3 Northern Flicker 1 Eastern Wood-Pewee 1 Least Flycatcher 1 Red-eyed Vireo 5 Blue Jay 3 American Crow 1 Common Raven 7 Black-capped Chickadee 3 Tufted Titmouse 1 Tree Swallow 1 Barn Swallow 2 Red-breasted Nuthatch 1 Carolina Wren 1 Cedar Waxwing 30 American Goldfinch 3 Baltimore Oriole 1 Black-throated Green Warbler 1
Predictions: Sunny, with a high near 71. Northwest wind 5 to 10 mph.
======================================================================== Report submitted by Adam Richardson (<poecile.gambeli...>) Bake Oven Knob information may be found at: www.lgnc.org
