Raptor Migration Summary- Thoolakharka Nepal, 4 Oct, 2013

Amur Falcon ( we are waiting to see more of those)

4 Oct, 2013 (Friday), this week (Sunday to Friday) weather was not good that is mostly cloudy and frequent rain. Thick ground cloud mainly covered the surrounding mountains which made visibility very poor and sky was also very cloudy. In many days we had rain in the nights and in the morning hours and rain stopped after 12:00 noon. So we had little opportunity to watch the raptors that pass the watch site. In the last week Northern Hobby, Common Kestrel, Black Kite, Black-eared Kite etc continued their migration. Local raptors like Black Eagle, Mountain Hawk-eagle, different species of vulture were also seen.  Last year record of Northern Hobby has already broke and daily total of the Hobby was 33 (27 Sept) and we were in a peak time of Hobby, although we have still good number of hobby migrating.  In the last days we had new arrivals of few species – Eurasian Marsh Harrier, Hen Harrier, Osprey, Long-legged Buzzard and Common Buzzard. Eurasian Marsh Harrier is the first sightings from this watch site.  Non Raptor migrants including big push of Red rumped swallows and Barn Shallows. From Thursday we have very few red rumped  and barn swallows were migrating, which seem the swallow migration is over in this part of the world. The weather forecast tells the weather will be remains same till this Monday, after that we expect few new species like Steppe Eagle which is the main species we get here. From Kaligandaki Valley (more north west) some peoples are watching Demoiselle Crane migration and they saw around 5000 cranes (single day) migrating to the south. The weather is also not good there.  

Species	2012 Total	Highest Daily Count	Total Count till date
Oriental Honey-buzzard	381	8	45
Common Buzzard	180	1	2
Long-legged Buzzard	4	1	2
Upland Buzzard	4		0
Unidentified Buteo	3		0
Northern Sparrowhawk	107	2	10
Northern Goshawk	3	1	2
Unidentified Accipiter	9		0
Steppe Eagle	6597		0
Booted Eagle	155	3	11
Short-toed Eagle	2		0
Crested Serpent-eagle	26	1	2
Pallas's Fish Eagle	2		0
Imperial Eagle	0		0
Indian Spotted Eagle	3		0
Greater Spotted Eagle	3		0
Bonelli's Eagle	13	2	3
Mountain Hawk-eagle	1		0
Golden Eagle	7		0
Unidentified Eagle	8	1	1
Black Kite	324	40	124
Black-Eared Kite		22	92
Osprey	3	1	2
Hen Harrier	19	1	2
Eastern Marsh Harrier	0	1	1
Pallid Harrier	1		0
Unidentified Harrier	3		0
Peregrine Falcon ssp. calidis	29	2	8
Saker Falcon	5		0
Northern  Hobby	80	33	128
Amur Falcon	78	2	4
Lesser Kestrel	66	1	1
Common Kestrel	83	12	56
Unidentified Falcon	21	1	6
Egyptian Vulture	24	6	27
White-rumped Vulture		16	36
Red-headed Vulture			0
Slender-billed Vulture			0
Himalayan Vulture	1270	3	3
Cinereous Vulture	73		0
Griffon Vulture	85		0
Unidentified Vulture	3		0
Unidentified Raptor	79	2	4
Total	9754	74	572
Red-rumped Swallow	16,301	5,558	18,785
Barn Swallow	2,482	489	2,655