May 15 [Day 80] The temperature rose to a season-high 17C from a low of 7C, with W-WNW winds gusting between 30 and 65 km/h all day: it was like spending the day inside a hair-drier! Apart from some altostratus low to the horizon before 0900 the day was completely cloudless and finding and keeping birds flying high in the blue in the binoculars with the strong gusty winds took a lot of effort. The day’s total of 21 migrant raptors is not a bad late-season count and again the flight was dominated by Sharp-shinned Hawks and Golden Eagles, all of which were immature as were the Cooper’s Hawk and 2 Northern Goshawks. The female American Kestrel that flew along the ridge at 1820 was only the second for the season and the first since the anomalously early male seen on March 19. Passerine migration was confined to 6 American Pipits and 5 Pine Siskins, and a very noisy pair of copulating Clark’s Nutcrackers at the site at 1610 was briefly diverting. Counts of 86 Bighorn Sheep and 27 Elk were season highs, and single Green Comma and Red-disked Alpine were the first butterflies seen on the ridge this year. 12.5 hours (927.2) NOHA 1 (28), SSHA 9 (179), COHA 1 (34), NOGO 2 (131), RTHA 2 (217), GOEA 5 (2970), AMKE 1 (2) TOTAL 21 (4145)