October 18 [Day 53] (Bill Wilson) The weather was fairly uniform all day with the temperature ranging from 6.5C to 9C, winds W-WSW generally 20-30 km/h occasionally gusting to 40 km/h and 70-100% altostratus, cumulus and cirrus cloud cover until after 1800 when it diminished to 20-30%. I went to Canmore today to give a talk at their Festival of Eagles and drove the last hour through heavy wet snow, with the mountains there completely obscured until early afternoon. I was pleasantly surprised to learn, therefore, on returning to the site at 1740 that there had been steady and continuous raptor movement since 0816 when the first Golden Eagle moved south which only diminished after 1800. There was also a greater variety of birds (8 species) moving than during the great Golden Eagle rush of the last five days, although Golden Eagles were still the dominant migrant with 114 birds counted. Sharp-shinned Hawks (28) still show little sign of slowing down and the 18 Northern Goshawks is a new single-day record for the site. Three of the day’s 4 Red-tailed Hawks were dark-morph “Harlan’s” and the other was a dark morph bird of unknown subspecies. Maximum passage was 1400-1500 with 41 birds including 22 Golden Eagles and 9 Sharp-shinned Hawks. The last bird of the day was a Sharp-shinned Hawk that flew south in the middle of a flock of Grey-crowned Rosy-Finches at 1808. Every so often it would pursue a finch and the flock would briefly scatter, but would quickly re-form still with the hawk in the middle of it! Passerine migration was again dominated by finches including 552 Grey-crowned Rosy-Finches, 28 Pine Grosbeaks, 11 Red Crossbills, 271 White-winged Crossbills and 40 Pine Siskins. Bohemian Waxwings (28) moved for just the second time this season and the 30 American Robins was their biggest movement for a week. In the Kananaskis Valley the snow in the morning was so heavy that cars were being turned back at Barrier Lake and Ron Dutcher was not able to access the Lorette site until 1300. The ridges finally cleared at in mid afternoon and the first migrant of the day was a Sharp-shinned Hawk at 1618 followed by a couple of juvenile Golden Eagles at 1734. There was then a late movement of 28 Golden Eagles with the last going south at 1848 by which time the light was so poor that apart from the first 4 adults it was impossible to age them. 11.75 hours (619.67) BAEA 4 (95), SSHA 28 (1381), COHA 2 (227), NOGO 18 (150), UA 8 (53), RTHA 4 (194), RLHA 6 (36), UB 2 (4), GOEA 114 (3858), MERL 3 (27) TOTAL 189 (6200)