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Subject:

Approaching our 10,000th Hawk at Cromwell Valley

From:

James Meyers

Reply-To:

James Meyers

Date:

Sat, 17 Oct 2009 13:47:34 -0400

The Cromwell Valley Park Hawkwatch is on the verge of recording the ten thousandth migrating hawk this season.  We expect to reach this milestone in the next week or two as the skies clear after all the rain we've had recently.  Migrating raptors tend to lay low and wait out rainy weather systems, and with all the rain in the mid-atlantic area lately the hawks may be bottled up and ready to move once some clear weather appears.  Add to this the colder temperatures to our north and we could have some impressive numbers moving through.  The Red-tailed Hawks should begin to migrate through our region very soon in numbers, as one watch site in Canada reported over 1,000 RTs moving south on Oct. 15th.  We anticipate several hundred RTs this season, and perhaps many more given the expanded number of hours spent observing.  

The increased number of observation hours, along with the number of skilled observers, is indeed the key to our record breaking season this year.  Kevin Graff's BackYard Hawkwatch from the late 1990's revealed that if one spends enough hours observing, the number of migrating raptors moving through the Baltimore area is astounding.  Kevin's site was just a few miles east of Cromwell Valley, and for several years he was able to observe 7 days a week during the season.   I believe his best count was 17,107 migrant raptors in the fall of 2000.

TOTALS from August 31st to October 14th 2009  CVP Hawkwatch

Bald Eagle - 74

Osprey - 214

N. Harrier - 48

Sharp-shinned Hawk - 1199

Coopers Hawk - 127

Red-shouldered Hawk - 11

Broad-winged Hawk - 7914

Red-tailed Hawk - 25

A. Kestrel - 187

Merlin - 40

Peregrine Falcon - 14

TOTAL RAPTORS - 9875

Jim Meyers

Parkville MD