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.

Saturday, November 24, 2007

November 24 [Day 88] It was a chilly start to the day with the temperature -10C to -9C until 1100 with 20km/h N-WNW winds blowing straight into my face. At 1150 the wind shifted to westerly with maximum gusts of 90 km/h around 1400 and subsequently dropped to 60 km/h, raising the temperature to a high of -3.5C at 1500. A Chinook Arch of thick altostratus cloud made the cold morning even gloomier until it moved to the east at 1100 leaving a sky of thin altostratus, cirrus and lenticular cloud with mainly sunshine for the rest of the day. To add to the misery of the morning the first raptor, a Rough-legged Hawk, did not appear until 1146, and the second, an adult Golden Eagle was not seen until 1306. After that, however, movement was steady with the last of the 9 adult Golden Eagles seen moving south at 1641 and the last of 5 Bald Eagles following it 5 minutes later at 1646. The combined species count of 16 was not bad for late November. The finch count comprised 1 Grey-crowned Rosy Finch, 1 Pine Grosbeak, 3 White-winged Crossbills and 9 Common Redpolls but only the crossbills and a few of the redpolls appeared to be migrating. 10 hours (951.81) BAEA 5 (587), NOGO 1 (162), RLHA 1 (77), GOEA 9 (5427) TOTAL 16 (8148)

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