With northwest winds in the forecast for Tuesday, Jeannette and I left Monday night for a quick trip down to New Hampshire to visit the Pack Monadnock Hawkwatch near Peterborough. We try and get down here once a year, and finally favorable winds were predicted for a Tuesday, so off we went.

We began the day, as we usually do when we visit Pack, and Edward McDowell Lake. It was pretty quite this morning, with a smattering of sparrows in the brush, a great look at and adult Bald Eagle passing low overhead in early morning sun, and a brief glimpse of an Otter.

Then, it was up to the hawkwatch. We had three species on our day’s “wantlist:” Red-shouldered Hawk (a hole on my New Hampshire state list), Northern Goshawk (just because we like them), and especially a Golden Eagle. Much to our consternation – and the basis for the running joke of the day – Lance, the Official Counter of the Hawkwatch, spotted a G-52 (as I like to call them) at 9:45am. We arrived at 10:30. D’oh. Well, at least we didn’t “just” miss one.

The view from the hawkwatch, looking north-northeast over North Pack:

It wasn’t a really busy day, with light to moderate westerly winds, but the day produced a total of 62 migrants (the complete list is here), including 5 Red-shoulders – some of which were extremely close and well seen. There was a good showing by the local Red-tailed Hawks, and the local immature Northern Goshawk did make a cameo. But, alas, no Golden Eagle for us. A fly-by White-winged Crossbill was the “hawk-food” highlight of the day.

In Monday’s blog, I mentioned that our store’s 3rd Annual Mini-hawkwatch came to an end. Every day –except for Tuesdays, when we’re off birding elsewhere, of course – we count migrants raptors from the parking lot in front of our store for an hour a day (a little longer on the good ones, usually). It’s not very scientific, but it’s a good excuse to spend some extra time outside each day – and pretending that we’re still biologists!

362 individuals of 12 species of raptors were tallied this year, in 32.55 hours of observation were logged, a new record. Despite missing the big Broad-winged Hawk flocks that have been the majority of the total for the past two years, we had a great season, with new high counts set for 7 species, and high counts tied for 2 others. The days that we did have Broad-winged Hawks were hot and cloudless, so no doubt we missed birds passing high overhead. But, with few days missed due to rain or fog, and some really good, diverse flights of other species, we really made up for it.

Here are the total counts for the past three seasons (sorry for the messy formatting, this blog software doesn’t seem to have the ability to recognize tables or tabs):
Species: 2005,2006,2007, Average
Turkey Vulture: 6, 14, 21, 13.7
Osprey: 19, 25, 69, 37.7
Bald Eagle: 13, 1, 13, 9
Northern Harrier: 5, 4, 4, 4.3
Sharp-shinned Hawk: 15, 19, 71, 35
Cooper’s Hawk: 8, 5, 9, 7.3
Northern Goshawk: 1, 0, 0, 0.3
Red-shouldered Hawk 0, 1, 4, 1.7
Broad-winged Hawk: 455, 275, 132, 287.3
Red-tailed Hawk: 5, 1, 4, 3.3
American Kestrel: 15, 4, 24, 14.3
Merlin: 4, 2, 9, 5
Peregrine Falcon: 1, 2, 2, 1.7

Season Total: 547, 353, 362, 420.7

Meanwhile, on the passerine front, the light winds and clear skies of the last two nights have produced two great flights. On Monday night, a lot of birds were on the move, as exemplified by the midnight radar image:

However, looking at the 5:00am image, we see that there were a lot of birds leaving, and fewer birds arriving – another mass exodus.

But, that exodus just made room for last night’s big flight!

And, comparing the 5am image from last night to Tuesday am, you can see that there were still plenty of birds in the air.

Winds were very light and variable overnight, so I did not squeeze in a visit to Sandy Point this morning. Hmm, maybe I should have!

I did visit Hedgehog Mountain Park, and found good numbers of Dark-eyed Juncos, White-throated Sparrows, and Yellow-rumped Warblers. A small group of Pine Siskins passed overhead, and I heard an Evening Grosbeak – hopefully a sign of things to come for an exciting finch-tastic winter!