October 13 No observation possible (Valley View site) I spent 8 hours at the site hoping that ridges would clear but gave up at 1520 and when I checked again at 1730 nothing had changed. The temperature ranged from –9C to -6C, winds were mainly light WSW becoming NE 10-15 km/h at 1500, upper winds appeared to be N, low overcast cloud obscured all ridges and light snow persisted all day. On this date last year we counted 637 Golden Eagles and this year’s Golden Eagle count is now 1120 birds behind the 2006-8 average.
Mount Lorette [Day 21] (George Halmazna) The temperature ranged from -10C to -4C with N ground winds all day light in the morning but gusting to 25 km/h in the afternoon more than offsetting the effects of the “warming trend”. All ridges were obscured until 1100 and the west remained obscured all day but the east started to clear from the SSE but was never more than 40% clear and by 1600 all ridges were again obscured. Snow stopped around 1200 and restarted after 1530. Despite the unpromising conditions Golden Eagles started to move after 1120 and persisted until 1630 with 27 of the day’s 74 birds moving between 1300 and 1400. Most of the birds were flapping low below the cloud, moving from Skogan Pass to the eastern side of the Kananaskis Valley and thence to the SE following the Evan-Thomas Creek Valley. The age structure of the flight was 67 adults and 7 juveniles and for the last week the average count of juveniles at both sites has been around 10% which is significantly lower than during the same period last year. New bird species for the site this season were 7 Tundra Swans flying to the W and 4 Rusty Blackbirds: 3 males and a female, and the season’s second Pacific Loon flew to the SSW at 1320. 11.25 hours (252.84) GOEA 74 (1303) TOTAL 74 (1303)