Swainson’s Hawks in Borrego Springs-Records Broken

Today, 815 Swainson’s Hawks migrated from Borrego Springs. The season total of 12,414 cracked the record year, 2017 when 11,690 Swainson’s Hawks were counted. With a few days left in the season, we expect more hawks. Why?, there still is an abundance of insects available. Now added to the buffet of grasshoppers (two species) are crickets and flying ants. If we do have caterpillars, they will probably be too late for the migrating hawks. The temperature today in the mid-90’s will speed up the life cycle of the desert flowers. The spectacle of thousands of hawks over the past several days has provided southern California folks and some folks from afar, an opportunity to witness nature at its best. Hopefully I’ll be reporting more hawks for the ALERT system (almost 500 folks get the ALERTS) in the coming days.