Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 01, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 1 1 1 Bald Eagle 0 0 0 Northern Harrier 1 1 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk 0 0 0 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 0 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 1 1 1 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 1 1 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 1 1 1 Merlin 0 0 0 Peregrine Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 1 1 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 6 6 6 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 14:00:00 Total observation time: 6 hours Official Counter: Andrew Sturgess, Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood Visitors: We are still dealing with the residue of the Covid 19 situation. The workers at the site will be in an enclosed area that is designed for four people only. We still love to interact and share our love of hawk watching with visitors, we just don’t want their cooties. Feel free to ask questions and look over our shoulders to help you follow the birds. Watch the weather for favorable forecasts as the birds are predictable to some degree based on weather situations. One other thing of note this year; the boat-launch bathroom building has been shut down for the foreseeable future due to plumbing issues. There are Porta-Johns in the parking lot should you require them. Weather: And so the curtain rises on another hawk migration season filled with the usual sense of hope and anticipation. We got off to a fine start weather-wise as that first tendril of hope wrapped itself around the forecast for today: NE winds with a rising barometer. In a little over two weeks this would have been The Day. Not so much on the first day,however. We did see a lone broad-winged hawk pass by but the persistent strength of the wind probably pushed any of its traveling companions to the south of us out over the lake. That’s the trouble with these early curtain risings, often the stage is empty. Raptor Observations: We did see a lone broadwing,a kestrel, one osprey and one harrier taking to the skies. The local contingent of eagles, red-tailed hawks, Cooper’s hawks, gulls and terns kept the skies entertaining as they rode the gusty, robust winds. Non-raptor Observations: The sighting of a Connecticut Warbler in another part of the park led us to call the watch a little early since we were doing little business anyway. We dipped on the warbler, as many do. Predictions: We are on the leading edge of a very large high pressure system which has blocked Ida from visiting our door and will deliver continuing NE winds through tomorrow. The strength of the winds will moderate from the mid-teens of today to less than ten miles an hour tomorrow. This would normally bode well for hawk watching and it may bring a few of the premature evacuators past our site. However, it is still hard to be overly optimistic about the 2nd of the month, when the month is September. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Jessie Fletcher (jessica_fletcher@fws.gov) Detroit River Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://www.detroitriverhawkwatch.org More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=285