April 13 [Day 49] (Valley View site) (Vance Mattson) It was the coolest day in 8 days with the temperature reaching a high of 6C from a low of 0C and returning to 0C at 2000. Ground winds were mainly W gusting to 40 km/h in mid afternoon, but dropping to less than 10 km/h after 1900. Ridge winds were W strong until 1900 when they dropped to light-moderate, and cloud cover was 30-70% cumulus and altostratus giving good observation conditions apart from 100% low stratus producing heavy wet snow before 0900, and a few light flurries in the afternoon. Raptor movement was slow and sporadic starting with 2 Golden Eagles at 0930, with a highest hourly count of only 5 between 1900 and 2000, including 4 Red-tailed Hawks, one of which appeared to have had most of its tail shot away. The last bird of the day was a juvenile Golden Eagle still gliding north at 2027, by far the latest bird this season. All 8 Red-tailed Hawks were adult light morph calurus and the 15 Golden Eagles comprised 4 adults and 11 juveniles. 12.58 hours (541.4) BAEA 1 (377), SSHA 1 (12), RTHA 8 (93), GOEA 15 (2486) TOTAL 25 (3103)
Mount Lorette (Joel Duncan) The temperature also ranged from 0-6C with strong SW ridge winds dropping in the evening and 50-100% stratus, cumulus, stratocumulus and cirrus cloud cover. The day saw 3 periods of snow showers and the mountains to the south and west were obscured for most of the day. No migrant raptors were seen, but Joel recorded the first American Pipit of the season. This concludes the Mount Lorette comparative count, which has been conducted on 41 of 44 possible days between March 01 and April 13. Both the Golden Eagle and combined species count are by far the lowest ever recorded during this period in 17 years of counting at the Mount Lorette site. Final count: 41 days (458.67 hours) BAEA 75, SSHA 6, COHA 5, NOGO 7, RTHA 6, RLHA 3, GOEA 872, MERL 1, PEFA 1, UA 2, UB 1, UE 4, UF 1 TOTAL 984