For the second time in less than a week we have broken our old single day record for Sharp-shinned Hawks at CVP with 178 counted.  Many of these were invisible to the unaided eye, and only persistent scanning revealed these high flying "accipidots" against a painfully blue, cloudless sky.  Local Redtails, Redshoulders and Coopers hawks were active most of the day, and made it difficult to distinguish the migrants from those which bred in the park this past Spring and claim Cromwell as their territory.  For this reason we believe these birds may be under-represented in the count.
Of particular interest was the late day descent flight of nearly 60 Sharpies between 4:00 and 6:00 PM.  The direction of this flight was WNW, with some birds even turning back to a NNE direction.  We've seen this happen many times in late day flights as birds descend to hunt and look for roosting spots.  I believe this is due to the looming sight of Baltimore City in front of these late day birds, surely a poor roosting choice.  Usually we would not count a bird flying WNW or NE as a migrant, but these late day flights of numerous hawks are the exception.  

Cromwell Valley Park HawkWatch - Saturday, Oct. 9th 2010 - 8:30 AM to 6:30 PM - 10+ observers - dozens of visitors as the park held it's annual Fall Harvest Festival

Sharpies - 178
Coopers - 10
Kestrel - 32
Peregrine - 1  ( where are the Merlins?)
N. Harrier - 10
Red-shoulder - 3
Redtail - 5
Broadwing - 10
Osprey - 6
B. Eagle - 3
Un.Id. - 9

Jim Meyers
Parkville MD.