from: Tim Mccarthy on behalf of Ontbirds
Winds 20-25 km mostly NW
Barometric pressure around 102 and rising.
Humidity starting at 67% going down to 44%
Visibility unlimited
Cloud cover from 5 to 75 %
If you've been paying attention you know by now what that means:
41 Turkey vultures
2 Ospreys
7 Bald eagles
2 Northern harriers
159 Sharpshins
14 Coopers
1805 Broadwings
31 Redtails
16 Am. Kestrels
2 Merlins
3 Peregrines
and give or take 17 ecstatic hawkwatchers.
And you know what? I'm not kidding, they did call in sick, play hooky from
school, go to lunch and not come back, lie, cheat, anything to get out for the
big hawk day. I think one person might even have climbed out the hospital
window. Bless'em all. They were all better hawkspotters than me.
And now I know why they put me in charge of keeping the days' records. I can't
see high flying birds to save my life. And I guess I got lucky predicting when
our big day was going to come and I'm glad that you came today to be part of
it.
But I've got some ideas and I'm going to talk about where when and how to find
migrating hawks in Toronto as soon as I find myself a venue. I think I know why
High Park got smaller totals over the last 2 weeks than any of the other
Hawkwatching sites and I think I know, given enough peoplepower what we should
do about that. Meantime today we enjoyed some real excitement, great
camaraderie beautiful weather and terrible birding jokes. Somebody oughta write
a book someday.
Tomorrow? Well, I'm not going to push my luck but it looks almost as good as
today.
For some pretty brilliant tips on how to find migrating hawks see Ron
Pittaway's article in the O.F.O. website.
See you on the hill.
Tim
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