Last fall we announced that the Kiptopeke Hawkwatch was approaching 750,000
birds, an impressive, nice round number, as a milestone. But, as mentioned
earlier on the List serve, we discovered some errors this year as we input
34 years of hourly data into the electronic database operated by the Hawk
Migration Association of North America...and found we had already passed
that milestone. So, we set our sights this season on the next big round
number, 800,000.
The hawkwatch only needed 1757 going into November to reach that goal,
however, after a great late September and October flight, the migration has
slowed dramatically in November, as documented patiently by Kyle in his
reports. The slowdown is region-wide, as seen in our other Virginia sites and
those of nearby states.
For the first half of November, the hawkwatch has recorded only 728 birds,
with some daily lows of 11, 9, 8 and 2! As a comparison, last year's
November recorded 1220 during the first half of the month, though 529 of those
came on just 2 days.
So...800,000 is still 1029 birds away. The strong cold front passing last
night and today should certainly encourage some bird movement
tomorrow...shouldn't it?!
Brian Taber
