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Banner Year for Broadwings
By David Barber, Senior Research Biologist
On the afternoon of September 18, we watched as the last of the broadwinged hawks streamed out of site, and then looked at each other—we were all at a loss for words. For an hour we had watched a continuous stream of broadwings pass over the lookout. Birds started kettling over #1 and #2, and when they reached the top of the thermal, they then turned towards the lookout. As birds streamed out the top, more joined the kettle at the bottom of the thermal. And so it continued for an hour, and at the end we counted 1,915 total broadwings. Maurice Broun talked about “red letter days” as “those days when hawks flood the Sanctuary skyways, as in fulfillment of a hawk-lover’s hopes and dreams.” We had just witnessed a “red-letter” hour.
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August 2022
AUGUST • Overcast skies and barely a breath of wind greeted Biologist-Naturalist Bracken Brown on the first day of the official count. The first migrant of the season, a juvenile broad-winged hawk, appeared at 10:24 AM and soared past the lookout. A juvenile sharpshinned hawk joined the count a couple of hours later, but the skies remained empty for the afternoon. A total of two raptors for the day offered an inauspicious start to the count.
Raptor migration remained light through the first week of the count, but early morning songbird flights did not disappoint. On the 20th, volunteer counter Paul Heveran tallied 13 species of warblers and a dickcissel, a species not recorded at North Lookout in over 40 years. A single-day record of 118 red-eyed vireos and
11 warbling vireos were tallied on the 23rd by Director of Conservation Science Laurie Goodrich. Strong songbird flights continued the next day when volunteer counter Jason Deeter and former trainee Patrick Maurice recorded 12 species of warblers, including a blue-winged warbler, an uncommon migrant at North Lookout.
The best raptor flight of the month occurred on the 27th; volunteer counters Holly Merker and Jeremy Scheivert counted an August-high 63 raptors, including 3 northern harriers, 47 broadwinged hawks, 4 ospreys, and 2 bald eagles.
Bracken Brown swept the swallows on the 29th, tallying 2 purple martins, 24 tree, 2 cliff, 61 barn, 8 bank, and 3 northern rough-winged swallows.
