The South Livingstone Raptor Count for the fall migration of 2007 has now begun. First official day of counting began on 25th August 2007. Follow the daily movement of raptors on this blog updated daily by Peter Sherrington.

Monday, October 22, 2007

October 22 [Day 55] The temperature rose from 0C at 0800 to a high of 4.5C late in the afternoon and the winds were westerly all day generally gusting between 45 and 60 km/h: mercifully we were spared the forecasted 110 km/h gusts. Cloud was a constant mix all day of 80-100% stratocumulus, cumulus and altostratus with snow squalls to the north and west all day. In the afternoon the peaks of the Livingstone Range were in cloud most of the time and conditions for migration appeared to be poor. Raptor movement, however, started at 0828 and birds moved steadily all day along a narrow consistent track between the snow squalls to the west and the occluded mountains to the east, and when the last bird moved south at 1812 120 migrants had passed , 113 of which were Golden Eagles. The only other raptors were 5 Bald Eagles, an adult dark morph Harlan’s Red-tailed Hawk and an adult male columbarius Merlin. Because of the high winds passerine movement was muted with the exception of a single flock of about 120 Bohemian Waxwings that perched near the site before flying south: the biggest flock seen so far this season. 11.66 hours (619.43) BAEA 5 (247), RTHA 1 (183), GOEA 113 (4251), MERL 1 (24) TOTAL 120 (6442)

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