I started the morning at La Mesa Park, which still has lots of western migrants in the lerpyeucs, including at least 4 Black-throated Gray Warblers and 2 Warbling Vireos.
I then picked up Mark Bright and we headed up to Romero Canyon. A couple of days ago we birded from Bella Vista, but today we decided to hike up to the Romero hawk watch spot, along with chairs and liquid refreshments. We got up there about 10:30 where we were above the fog, and almost immediately began to see Lewis's Woodpeckers heading west along the ridgeline above us. Some would land and circle around for a while, appearing to be bug catching, before carrying on. At about 11:30 we saw a line of Lewis's flying below us, approximately where the fog ended. In this group, which took about a minute to pass, I counted 97 (ninety-seven!) birds. The last bird passed at about noon. The total for the morning, and I'm sure there were many more I missed, was 156 birds--phenomenal. All were heading west.
We had great looks at a light-morph juvenile Swainson's Hawk that circled right overhead. We thought we were going to get skunked on Broad-winged Hawk until two birds appeared close by at eye level, and one blasted by between us and the hillside, not 30 feet away. We saw an additional bird below us before we left.
Other raptors included 18 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 3 Cooper's Hawks, 2 Kestrels, 1 Merlin, and numerous Red-tailed Hawks that didn't seem to be on the move. All the other raptors wereheading east.
Other birds included approximately 25 White-throated Swifts, 2 Ravens, and 3 Rufous-crowned Sparrows. Yellow-rumped Warblers were an almost constant presence as they moved east. They often stopped to feed before moving on.
Hugh Ranson SB