April 3 (Bill Wilson) There was about 20 cm of fresh snow on the ground and the temperature at 0640 was -10.5C which rose to a much more pleasant 3C at 1700 before falling to -2C at the end of the day. Ground winds were W-SW 0-10 gusting 20 km/h and ridge winds were moderate to strong W-SW. Cloud cover was 20% cumulus until 1100 which increased to 50-60% at 1700 after which it changed to 70-80% altostratus and cirrus for the rest of the day, generally giving excellent observing conditions. The first migrant raptors were 2 Bald Eagles at 1050 and peak movement was 28 birds (1 Bald and 27 Golden Eagles) between 1800 and 1900, with secondary peaks of 15 birds between 1100 and 1200, and 1900 and 2000; the last bird, a Golden Eagle was recorded at 1954. Movement was confined to the eastern route with the exception of 1100 to 1130 when a dozen birds moved on the western ridges. The total flight of 91 birds comprised 9 adult Bald Eagles, 4 calurus Red-tailed Hawks (2 light adults, 1 light juvenile and 1 unaged dark bird), 1 light morph Rough-legged Hawk and 77 Golden Eagles (62a, 2sa, 7j, 6u).

13.83 hours (330.25) BAEA 9 (137), RTHA 4 (11), RLHA 1 (12), GOEA 77 (2661) TOTAL 91 (2856)

Beaver Mines (Peter Sherrington) Starting at around 1315 I noticed a few Golden Eagles moving to the NW from the end of a foothills ridge known locally as the Big Hill, located across the Beaver Mines Creek valley to the SE of my house. These observations were sporadic as I was busy reformatting data sets on my computer. At 1500 I went out on my upstairs balcony to take a break and saw 18 Golden Eagles in a soaring kettle over the Big Hill, that then glided high over Beaver Mines towards the NW, to be replaced a few minutes later by 7 more birds that followed the same route. The hour 1500-1600 produced 37 migrant raptors: 3 Bald Eagles, 5 Red-tailed Hawks and 29 Golden Eagles, so I continued observing (with some breaks) until 1930. The total flight, all of which more or less followed the same route, was 94 migrant raptors comprising 11 Bald Eagles (9a, 1sa, 1j), 17 adult calurus Red-tailed Hawks (14 light, 1 intermediate (rufous), 2 dark), 1 dark morph adult Ferruginous Hawk, 1 light morph Rough-legged Hawk, 63 Golden Eagles (54a, 7sa, 2j) and an adult male columbarius Merlin. At 1919 a probable resident adult female Northern Goshawk made a long, low pursuit of a starling towards the north just east of the house, and the day's last migrant was an adult dark morph Red-tailed Hawk, flying low, probably towards a roost. The NW trajectory of the birds would take them after 17 km of flying exactly to the southern culmination of the Livingstone Range, and after a further 4 km gliding to the north they would pass over our Piitaistakis-South Livingstone site. There are a number of NW-SW oriented foothill ridges between Pincher Creek and the mountain front. The ridge system that includes the Big Hill is the easternmost of these main ridges and farther to the SE is located to the east of the Waterton Main Ranges. The foothill ridges farther west such as the Carbondale Ridge carry birds moving north from the Castle area with a catchment from The Clark Range in the west to the Waterton Main Ranges to the east. Under normal conditions these ridges appear to provide the main feeders to the Livingstone raptor highway, but it is probable that the severe winter storm that hit the area on Saturday pushed a number of birds out of the mountains towards the foothills, and the movement observed today represented the move back towards the main route. I shall see what happens over the next few days, but it was an exciting few hours and it was certainly the most comfortable watching I have experienced in the last 20 years! 6.25 hours BAEA 11, [NOGO 1], RTHA 17, FEHA 1, RLHA 1, GOEA 63, MERL 1 TOTAL 94.

After spending a couple of days moving around the position reported at the end of March, “Elaine”, the adult female Golden Eagle being tracked by the Raptor View Research Institute, has now moved a further 150 km to the NW and now appears to be on the southern flanks of the Brooks Range west of Chandalar Lake.