Cameron and I were in fact doing our morning non-raptor survey from the apt
rooftop at Lester River in Duluth on 6 October- in three hours of counting
beginning at sunrise, we saw nearly 11,000 migrants, which brings our season
total to 219,466 non-raptors. Recent flights have been so large two observers
are necessary on the rooftop to cover all the mixed flocks of migrants, and I
expect these large flights to continue through October. Kim is right that the
flight was primarily American Robins, and even his extrapolation was correct
(we
counted 6124 American Robins), but very large number of other species were
mixed
into these flocks, including one Gray Jay and thousands of warblers (mostly
Yellow-rumps).
Our full count for 6 October was 11,633 non-raptors including 19 Cackling
Geese,
32 Canada Geese, 2 Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers, 1 Downy Woodpecker, 1 Gray Jay
(brigning our season total to 21 so far), 155 Blue Jays (bringing our season
total to a record 64,843, with the flight mostly done), 463 American Crows, 19
Common Ravens, 50 Horned Larks (best day so far), 6 Red-breasted Nuthatches, 5
White-breasted Nuthatches, 75 Eastern Bluebirds, 6124 American Robins (bringing
our season total to 26,665 with many many more to come), 16 European Starlings,
60 American Pipits, 114 Cedar Waxwings, 151 Yellow-rumped Warblers, 8 Palm
Warblers, 1975 unidentified warblers (bringing our season total to 27,503- not
sure if there will be another large Yellow-rump push or not), 3 Fox Sparrows,
314 Dark-eyed Juncos (best flight so far), 28 Lapland Longspurs, 2 Red-winged
Blackbirds, 900 Rusty Blackbirds (bringing our season total for this declining
species to a record 12,447), 11 Common Grackles, 167 Purple Finches, 3 House
Finches, 261 Pine Siskins, 8 American Goldfinches, and 9 Evening Grosbeaks.
These non-raptor counts are updated daily at www.hawkcount.org which can also
be
viewed via the Hawk Ridge website at www.hawkridge.org
Karl Bardon and Cameron Rutt
Hawk Ridge counters
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