Cromwell Valley Park HawkWatch  -  Friday,  9/19/08

A spectacular lift-off of over 40 separate kettles of Broad-winged Hawks was witnessed by 8 thrilled observers.  These kettles ranged in size from 5 birds to 202 birds.  Most of the groups were over our south-east ridge (BG&E power line hill), but many were also over our north ridge, giving us great, relatively close views.  This began just before 8:30 am and ended by about 10:00 am.  Several large streams of BWs came right over head.  We tried something different the last couple of days with an observer positioned on the south-east BGE ridge about 5/8 mile east of our watch-site.  In addition to letting us know, via radio, of groups of BWs coming our way, he was also able to see over our north ridge and get some hawks that were just not viewable from our watch-site. This added another 303 birds to our count.

At about the same time another huge flight of Broad-wings was reported by Bob Rineer from a location 5.18 miles NW of Cromwell Valley.  He counted 1,300 BWs over the Hunt Valley section of Baltimore County.  These hawks were not the same hawks that we at CVP were counting. I think Kevin Graff saw about 800 BWs a few miles SE of us at the same time.  This mornings flights may have been one the largest movements of BWs recorded in our area!!  Thanks to everyone who helped scan and count today.

The afternoon flight was a completely different story. Just a couple dozen or so individual BWs were seen.

Totals  CVP  HawkWatch  - 9/19/08  - 8:00 am till 5:30 pm - 12 observers at various times

Broad-winged Hawk - 1,856

Sharp-shinned Hawk - 37

Coopers Hawk - 2 

Osprey - 6

Am. Kestrel - 15

N. Harrier - 4

B. Eagle - 3

Jim Meyers
Parkville Md