birdsoup

I am officially resigning from my role as prognosticator, forecaster, seer, futurist, and predictor.

You may recall I estimated that 10 birders would join in my visit to the Chestnut Ridge Hawk Watch. However, we actually had 16 adults plus 6 children – a nice turn out on a crisp autumn morning – and more than twice the number I predicted.

Moreover, I planned this outing for mid-September which is supposed to the peak of Broadwing Hawk migration. We did see Broadwings. A nice kettle of 18 Broadwings flew directly overhead, we had to look straight up to see them. They were high in the sky but we could clearly see their shape but not make out much detail.

We also saw some lone Broadwings far in the distance. As one observer said they looked like spots of pepper in the sky.
Unfortunately, we didn’t see hundreds or thousands of hawks as I had hoped. Maybe I should have scheduled our visit for the following week. Or maybe the next day, Sunday, there were reports of 500 Broadwings seen in less than an hour.

So my predictions were way off. There were twice as people as I forecasted, but few hawks. Obviously, I am not a good seer. In the future I restrict my estimates to past events.