Hello everyone,
The warm, calm conditions yesterday following a stretch of bad weather were
conducive to a major push of south-bound raptors along the Front Range
foothills. I perched myself on an exposed hogback in the Eldorado Mountain Open
Space just inside Jefferson County for about 1.5 hrs yesterday afternoon.
Between 1:00-2:05 pm, there was a constant flow of birds, mostly Red-tailed
Hawks, following slow, low-altitude lines along the hogback and the surrounding
areas. During this time, there were almost calm conditions with a slight (<5
mph) breeze from the E. At 2:05 a stiff S wind kicked up. Snow began to whirl
around up on the upper slopes. As soon as this south wind kicked up the flow of
migrants stopped completely.
During an hour and five minutes I did count these:
53 Red-tailed Hawk
40 adult Western
6 imm light Western
1 adult Eastern
2 imm light Eastern
1 funky adult intermediate Harlan's
3 unknown age/race
2 Ferruginous Hawks
1 dark, 1 adult light, 1st sighting at this property for me, expected in
this habitat during these conditions
1 adult Bald Eagle
1 adult male American Kestrel
1 immature Northern Harrier (local, not migrating)
6 Cooper's Hawks
2 adult, 1 immature, 3 unknown ages, both adults w/full crop
7 Sharp-shinned Hawks
4 adults, 1 immature, 2 unknown ages, one adult w/full crop
Raptor menu choices:
1 fly-over Cassin's Finch
1 fly-over House Finch
2 Clark's Nutcrackers (full crops, presumably feeding on the copious Ponderosa
Pine seeds which are fueling larger-than-normal numbers of Red-breasted
Nuthatches, Evening Grosbeaks and Golden-crowned Kinglets {ok, maybe they
aren't eating pine seeds, but there are lots of them this year}, but not a
single Type 2 Red Crossbill in weeks)
Cheers,
Christian Nunes
[email protected]
http://www.flickr.com/photos/christian_nunes/
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