Bradbury Mountain Hawkwatch: Week 4

This week started out with a bang with a count of 197 on 4/5 on light southwest winds. A large chunk of this movement was Turkey Vultures, but the first Broad-winged Hawk was observed on this day. This was followed by 3 more very respectable count days with fairly strong NW winds. However, another dumping of 6” of snow on 4/9 - 4/10 closed things down for a number of hours. A Black Vulture was seen on 4/7, the first we have counted in 3 years here. Numbers of Osprey and Sharp-shinned Hawks are now steadily increasing, and we expect to see our first push of Broad-winged Hawks shortly. 4/5 also saw a nice movement of blackbirds with a smattering of Tree Swallows. Two more Sandhill Cranes were seen on 4/10, along with over 200 American Robins heading south before the storm.

Week 4 Totals (current week - total to date - 2019 total)

BLACK VULTURE 1-1-0

TURKEY VULTURE 256-548–573

OSPREY 23-24–433

SWALLOW-TAILED KITE 0-0-0

MISSISSIPPI KITE 0-0-0

BALD EAGLE 5-80–78

NORTHERN HARRIER 9-13–152

SHARP-SHINNED HAWK 43-65–621

COOPER’S HAWK 9-18–70

NORTHERN GOSHAWK 1-3–3

RED-SHOULDERED HAWK 4-51–98

BROAD-WINGED HAWK 10-10–3041

SWAINSON’S HAWK 0-0-0

RED-TAILED HAWK 17-93–192

ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK 0-0-2

GOLDEN EAGLE 0-0-0

AMERICAN KESTREL 11-13–494

MERLIN 8-10–88

PEREGRINE FALCON 0-0-3

UNIDENTIFIED RAPTOR 2-12–42

TOTAL 399-941–5890