Lora's Hawk Watching

Lora found an article in the Tennessee Conservationist magazine about Hawk watching in Soddy Daisy.  We went out Saturday evening to see what they had going on and met Bill who filled us in on what they do.  Lora went out the following day and got to meet the actual people interviewed by the magazine and spent the day with them.  Attached is a segment on from there blog Soddy Mountain Hawk Watch:

Saturday 9-21 was pretty much a total rain out until the last hour of the day.  Bill Holt and Lora McBride had about one half hour of blue skies but never saw any migrants.

Sunday 9-22-13 was our best day so far this season!  The skies were washed clean of haze earlier in the day.

• Temps were from 66 degrees at 1000 up to 77 degrees at 1800.
• Barometric Pressure 29.90 dropped to 29.87
•  Humidity dropped from 65% down to 43%
• Wind was variable at times but mostly from the North to Northeast up to 12 MPH
• Visibility ranged from 40 kilometers to 45 K and then back to 40 K
• Cloud Cover was off and on from 0% to 5% making it extremely hard to see birds in the clear blue skies.

We had many wonderful visitors to include: Lora McBride, Bob Saunders and Millie his wonder dog, Pete & Marg Krampee, Ruth Ann Henry, Kathy Andregg who drove up from Acworth, Georgia, Charles Murray and Carla Quinn brought her parents Martha and Ben Hall.

 Jimmy & Cynthia along with Bill Holt logged: 622 Broad-winged Hawks, 3 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 1 Cooper's Hawk, 1 Osprey and 3 adult Bald Eagles.(assisted by our count helpers)

...SPECIAL RECOGNITION needs to go out to Lora McBride who helped us get on so many of the single specks as well as several kettles.  Pete Krampee no doubt has a special ability to just look up and see specks the rest of us needed binoculars to see.  Marge Krampee also got on a group of near 100 birds while others were looking at another 100 in the opposite direction.  

Year to date we have seen:

• 1353  Broad-winged Hawks
• 4  Osprey
• 11  Sharp-shinned Hawks
• 3  Cooper's Hawks
• 2  American Kestrels
• 1  Peregrine Falcon
• 5  Bald Eagles < 4 adults, 1 sub adult, 4th. year >
• 1  early Red-shouldered Hawk
• 1 un-identified accipiter

If you've stuck with me thus far, from the bottom of our hearts THANK YOU! to Louise Zepp for her wonderfully spectacular article in THE TENNESSEE CONSERVATIONIST  about our special place we call Soddy Mountain Hawk Lookout.  She is a unique writer and was factual to the last degree in every word she wrote and also the photo layout she selected. [Thanks Vicki Henderson for your  great kettle of BW’s(pic), C.]