April 14-Last Evening For the Season

Migration Today:
Swainson's Hawks-3
Turkey Vultures-15

Discussion:
A blustery day with intermittent rain, wind and clouds. By 9A the hawks and TV's were gone, possibly migrating through Palm Canyon. As the sun sets, so does the blog for the year. It's been a great year with the total number of Swainson's Hawks approaching 5,000. A full summary will be available in Hawk Migration Studies, a publication of Hawk Migration Association of North America. It will probably be available in late fall. Last year we counted almost 9,000 Swainson's Hawks. This year was a good example of "it's not the numbers". We had close encounters with kettle after kettle of hawks this year. Great close looks and wonderful evenings of hawk fall outs was the norm. The numbers below illustrate the spread of days with over 200 hawks in March (SW). Although huge numbers like 1,800 in a day last year, are exciting, they can be high and far away. Many days this year the SW's flew almost at eye level.

Evening Watch:
The wind continues and 5 Swainson's appeared but the roost site was not discovered.

Prediction for Tomorrow:
The temperature will increase tomorrow into the 80's with a warming trend all week. The possibility still exists for a number of Swainson's Hawks to come through. They may have been backed up by the storm. Hopefully tomorrow will provide surprises.