March 31 [Day 37] (Valley View site) The temperature ranged from -2C to 7C and ground winds were very variable in the morning becoming westerly in the afternoon gusting 25-30 km/h. Ridge winds were W moderate until 1400 when they moved to NW, and cloud cover was a mixture of cumulus, altostratus, lenticular and cirrus ranging from 50 to 100% and usually providing good viewing conditions. At 1800 dark stratus cloud started moving from the north and at 1830 a cold front passed quickly reducing the temperature to -1C with N winds bringing heavy snow that completely obscured everything. Raptor movement started fairly early with a Bald Eagle moving at 0742 followed by 2 Golden Eagles before 0800, but movement was generally fairly slow and sporadic until after 1400 when the next 2 hours produced 16 migrants each. The day saw movement of a season high 9 species of raptor including the first Gyrfalcon (a grey morph adult) at 1159, the first Ferruginous Hawk (a light morph adult) at 1747, a season high 5 Red-tailed Hawks (all light morph calurus adults) and the second highest Northern Goshawk count of 9 birds (all adults). Of the 56 Golden Eagles recorded, 25% were immature birds: 9 subadults and 5 juveniles. The last Golden Eagle of the day came through at 1804 after which time the black clouds to the north would have given clear notice to the birds that further progress to the north was inadvisable. 12 hours (391.8) BAEA 9 (253), SSHA 2 (7), NOGO 9 (48), RTHA 5 (15), FEHA 1 (1), RLHA 1 (16), GOEA 56 (2264), GYRF 1 (10, PRFA 1 (11) TOTAL 85 (2623)
March Summary During the month we lost a RMERF record 5 complete days to inclement weather and a further 4 days were curtailed (2 severely) because of weather, so the number of days (26) and hours (282) were 10.3% and 11.7% below last year’s numbers respectively. Despite this the combined species count of 2488 was only 72 (-2.8%) below last year’s count and the Golden Eagle count of 2200 was actually 11 more than last March (+0.5%). The main reason for the lower combined species count was relatively low counts for Bald Eagle (190, -27.5%), Northern Goshawk (48, -20.7%) and Red-tailed Hawk (15, -40%). Sharp-shinned Hawk (7, +600%), Rough-legged Hawk (11, +57.1%), Merlin (5, +66.7%) and Prairie Falcon 10 (+233%) were all higher than last year, while Peregrine Falcon (2) was recorded for the first time in March at the site. Single Ferruginous Hawk and Gyrfalcon were the same as last year, while single Northern Harrier, Cooper’s Hawk and American Kestrel recorded last year were not seen this March.

Mount Lorette (Cliff Hansen) Conditions were very similar to those at P-SL with a temperature range of -2C to 7C, moderate to strong SW ridge winds and 60-100% cumulus, altostratus and cirrus cloud cover giving excellent observing conditions. The cold front hit the site at 1700 bringing snow and obscuring all ridges. The similarity in the weather unfortunately did not extend to the raptor movement as only 5 migrants were seen, including the first 2 Sharp-shinned Hawks of the season. 11.75 hours (295.7) BAEA 1 (33), SSHA 2 (2), GOEA 2 (676) TOTAL 5 (728)