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Subject:

Raptors and Gliders

From:

Bill Ellis

Reply-To:

Maryland Birds & Birding

Date:

Mon, 16 Aug 2004 08:05:13 -0400

Pat:

Since you hawk watch and glide, have you heard of the recent
suggestion that the "thermal updraft velocity" that is so
important to glider pilots is also excellent for predicting the
quality of raptor migration days?  Paul Summerskill (of Canada)
studied it intensively, and reported his results -
www.ideasbypaul.ca

He recommends recording this datum, along with the weather data
usually reported, with each hawk watching report.  His results
are pretty convincing.  Our Sue Ricciardi (Fort Smallwood Park
hawk watch) helped with the study.

Previous days' thermal updraft velocity data are available at -
http://www.drjack.info/BLIP/RUC/

Successful hawk watching does not require early rising, except
for the thermals!

Bill Ellis
Eldersburg
Carroll County, MD

-----Original Message-----
From: Maryland Birds & Birding
[mailto:[log in to unmask]]On
Behalf Of Patricia Valdata
Sent: Monday, August 09, 2004 10:34 AM
To: 
Subject: Re: [MDOSPREY] Western Tanager - Help!


Any chance it could have been a first-year male summer tanager?
I'm basing that wild guess on the picture in the National
Geographic field
guide.

At Harford Country Airport in Churchville on Saturday, a
red-shouldered hawk
circled above the field. On Sunday, I saw a shoulder and two
red-tailed
hawks, one of which called to the other birds. Shortly afterwards
I spotted
a kestrel, also soaring, and a black vulture. On the way home I
saw a great
egret
in the middle of the Aldino Sod Farm, which is just across MD 156
from
the airport, where I fly gliders with the Atlantic Soaring Club.

Also on Sunday I saw three ospreys having fish for lunch on red
marker #8
in the Northeast River,
but saw no ospreys on any of the other buoy/marker nests. Bald
eagles,
turkey vultures,
ospreys, and great blue herons were ridge soaring the cliff near
red buoy #2.
Is a small tern with almost no tail typically a young Forster's
tern?

I'm new to this list, though I've been lurking for a few weeks.
I'm still pretty much a beginner, probably because I am not a
morning person
and so I miss many wonderful field trips. I belong to the Cecil
bird club and
I hawk watch at Turkey Point.


--Pat

Pat Valdata | 
"The natural function of the wing is to soar upwards
and carry that which is heavy up to the place where dwells the
race of gods.
More than any other thing that pertains to the body
it partakes of the nature of the divine." --Plato