April 4 [Day 32] (Jim Davis) The temperature was -1C to 1100 and -2C for the rest of the day, and cloud cover was 100% stratus all day. It was calm until 0950 when NE winds developed that gusted to 40 km/h, heavy snow began to fall and the hitherto clear mountains became completely obscured in a couple of minutes. At 1000 Jim left for Lusk Creek where there was still some visibility (c500 m), snowfall was lighter and the wind NE at 10 km/h, but conditions there gradually deteriorated and the count was abandoned for the day at 1230. The only migrant raptors seen were 5 adult calurus Red-tailed Hawks (4 light and 1 rufous morph), 2 seen from the Hay Meadow at 0901 and 0944 and 3 at Lusk Creek at 1057, 1058 and 1109. Before the weather system arrived the almost snow-free Hay Meadow was full of feeding songbirds including 5 Canada Geese, 1 Northern Flicker, 5 Mountain Bluebirds (3 males, 2 females), 6 Varied Thrushes, 48 American Robins, 3 Bohemian Waxwings, 149 “Slate-coloured” morph Dark-eyed Juncos of the race cismontanus and 10 “Oregon” morphs. When the NE wind arrived at 0950 the birds took off en masse and within a couple of minutes the meadow was empty. 5 hours (312.33) RTHA 5 (8) TOTAL 5 (898)

The further adventures of “Elaine” Today Elaine moved about 150 km to the north and has reached the SE part of the Philip Smith Mountains near Wiseman on the Dalton Highway, 25 km WSW of Big Lake. She is now less than 100 km SSW of the area where she spent the summer last year and it appears that she will arrive there on about the same date as she did last year. Amazing!