September 27 [Day 31] It was relatively calm (<30 km/h) before noon, but in the afternoon the westerly winds picked up gusting at times to 60 km/h. The cloud cover was perfect for observation all day with variable combinations of thin cirrus, cumulus and altocumulus cloud providing a perfect backdrop for flying raptors. The combined species total of 204 was the highest so far, as was the Golden Eagle count of 591. Movement started at 0808 when an adult female columbarius Merlin moved along the ridge pushing a wave of fleeing songbirds ahead of it, and finished at 1914 when the last Golden Eagle of the day moved south against a fantastic sunset. The pace of the movement was remarkably consistent with the hourly counts between 1000 and 1800 being 21, 22, 21, 22, 25, 20, 24 and 29. Five of the 10 Red-tailed Hawks were adult dark morph “Harlan’s”. The relatively calm conditions in the early morning combined with a clear night with a full moon produced the best songbird movement for a couple of weeks including 42 Red-breasted Nuthatches (including a single flock of 16 flying south), 1 White-breasted Nuthatch, 34 Golden-crowned Kinglets, 50 Ruby-crowned Kinglets, 79 American Robins, 15 Yellow-rumped Warblers and 55 Dark-eyed Juncos of 4 different subspecies. In fact a single flock contained all the regularly occurring Alberta forms: hyemalis, cismontanus, montanus and mearnsi. Two Blue Jays flying high to the south along the ridge were the first for the season, and a male American Three-toed Woodpecker was the first seen migrating along the ridge, although I had a feeding bird at a lower elevation last year. The flow of songbirds stopped abruptly at 1000 just in time for the raptor movement to get underway: it was a very busy day! 12.75 hours (346.77) OSPR 1 (13), BAEA 5 (39), NOHA 1 (45), SSHA 36 (533), COHA 2 (148), RTHA 10 (151), GOEA 146 (591), MERL 1 (7), PEFA 2 (22) TOTAL 204 (1689)