Friday, April 3, 2015

A Marvelous Finish of the Feeding Season-March 28-April 3, 2015

Leaders:
March 28-Pam
March 29-Pam
March 30-Herb
March 31-Steve
April 1-Laura
April 2-Bob
April 3-Hal

Migration:
March 28-526 Swainson's Hawks; 4 TV's (Turkey Vultures)
March 29-162 Swainson's Hawks; 1 Red-tailed Hawk
March 30-36 Swainson's Hawks; 1 TV
March 31-26 Swainson's Hawks
April 1-3 Swainson's Hawks ; 1 TV
April 2-48 Swainson's Hawks; 1 Unknown Buteo
April 3-21 Swainson's Hawks

Discussion:
This period is marked by the end of caterpillar feeding and the return of the typical pattern of migration. On Saturday March 28, hundreds of Swainson's Hawks rose from the feeding grounds to migrate very close to the count site. The following day saw the final chapter of the feeding hawks. They once again ringed up and migrated near the count site. On Sunday March 29th a group of hawks dropped into the Date Farm in the evening. In most years this is the migration pattern. That is, we wait patiently for hawks to arrive in the evening-dropping from the sky. A small number of hawks continue to enter the valley on a daily basis now. We anticipate a few more big days, with hawks that have migrated from as far as Argentina. On Friday April 3rd we had lots of aerial feeding, probably on flying ants. As of today this years count is the third highest in 13 years.
   
The Evening Watch-Tommy Antel


Set Wings for Streaming Migration-HC

Hawks Beginning to Kettle-Indian Head in the background

Female Light Morph-Johnathan

Jonathan

Large March Kettle-HC

Intermediate SW-Peter Thomas

Dark or probably Intermediate-HC


Good Looking Turkey Vulture-Gary Hilton
Intermediate-Terry Hunefeld

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