October 7 [Day 43] (Valley View site) Snow fell to 1320 and again from 1600-1640. Ridges were completely obscured to 1100 after which parts of the Livingstone ridge became visible but it was not until 1730 that everything was finally clear. The temperature reached a high of 1.5C from a starting temperature of -2C and fell to -3C at 1900 as cloud cover was reduced to 60-70% cumulus. Ground winds were variable and light all day while ridge winds were E light to moderate until 1600 when they became N light. Despite the ridges remaining substantially in cloud there was some raptor movement starting at 1234 with birds either moving above the valley, moving below the cloud on the Livingstone ridge or moving south from Bluff Mountain to the W of the valley. After the afternoon snow event the ridges cleared and cloud cover was reduced but the very light winds meant that only 2 birds moved after 1700, the last being a Merlin at 1751. The flight included 22 Golden Eagles (10a,6sa,5j,1u), the first Red-tailed Hawks (4) for 5 days and a season high count of 4 Rough-legged Hawks. The raptor highlight, however, was the season’s second Gyrfalcon at 1514: an adult grey morph bird. Even more remarkable was the movement of a total of 389 Snow Geese in four separate flocks the largest of around 300 birds flying to the south in the snow in several closely associated skeins at 1135. A Northern Shrike (an adult) was the second for the season, and a briefly singing Barred Owl at 1730 was the 94th bird species for the season 12 hours (512.13) SSHA 5 (911), NOGO 1 (92), RTHA 4 (170), RLHA 4 (12), GOEA 22 (991), MERL 1 (24), GYRF 1 (2) TOTAL 38 (2894)
Mount Lorette [Day 15] (Peter Allen) There were snow flurries all day moving from the N and lasting an average of 40 minutes. Winds were N up to 10 km/h except during snow squalls when they reached 20-30 km/h. The temperature rose from 0C to 2C and fell to -3C at 1900, and cloud cover was 100% stratus all day thinning between 1230 and 1700 allowing hazy sunshine. The mountains to the W were obscured all day, but the Fisher Range to the E cleared between 1240 and 1630. Raptor migration was confined to a juvenile Cooper’s Hawk at 1416 and a subadult Golden Eagle at 1613, but there was a reasonable variety of songbirds including season’s first records for either site of Bohemian Waxwings (17) and Red Crossbills (14). The day’s highlight, however, was undoubtedly 2 Grey Wolves in the Hay Meadow at 1300. 11.67 hours (193.84) COHA 1 (9), GOEA 1 (835) TOTAL 2 (950)