April 5 Daily Flight Summary

cue the soothing sounds of the Smith River

Official Counter         

Adam Richardson

Observers       

None

Weather         

Light rain fell early in the morning, but only briefly.  Overcast to mostly cloudy skies until 13:30 when it began raining to the south.  By 16:00 it was raining at Camp Baker for most of the hour before breaking again for the remainder of the evening.  Cirrus clouds gave way to stratus and eventually nimbo-stratus rolled in from the SW bringing rain.  Thermal lift was poor-fair until 14:30 when the TUVU came through and it was good ahead of the approaching rain.  Wind was out of the E at 3kph at 09:00 but switched to the south for the remainder of the count.  The south wind was light at 3-7kph, but at 15:30 ahead of the approaching rain started gusting 20-24kph.  Low temperature of 4C and a high of 14C by 12:30. The temperature then fluctuated from 14-12C as the clouds started to roll in.  The barometer fell as the weather approached.  Visibility was excellent until 16:00.

Raptor Notes 

(1) COHA (2) RTHA (4) TUVU (3) GOEA (1) NOHA (1) PRFA

The first raptor of the day was a PRFA coming head on along the western route to directly over the OP.  That was an awesome way to start todays count.  The first COHA came through 2 hours later along the near eastern route.  GOEA went off the top of Jumbo out the far eastern route.  As the weather started to roll in between 14:00-16:00 (4) TUVU came through.  The first 2 just appeared a little below eye level to the east of the OP having flown in the near eastern route.  These birds continued down the Smith River over Berkins Butte where each bird climbed briefly before folding up and shooting north.  Two more came through an hour later. 

Resident raptors became active at 10:00 with the male NOHA flying up the canyon to the SW of the OP.  Not minutes later a RLHA joined it to be followed by the female NOHA some 15 minutes later.  The resident MERL was back zipping south to the Johnston Pasture and back to Sheep Creek in a matter of a minute or so.  Later in the day a resident BAEA was going after something along the banks of the Smith River in the Johnston Pasture when it was attacked by the dark-morphed RTHA.  While cooking dinner in camp out of the corner of my eye I caught the resident male NOHA going after the ground squirrel that lives near my camp.  It was completely flared out and appeared to have just taken a swipe as its talons were down.

Non-raptor Notes

Notable arrivals today were EVGR, WTSW and WEME.

Visitors           

None

Next Day Forecast

N/A

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