Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 27, 2011 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 2073 34851 35009 Osprey 2 45 188 Bald Eagle 10 81 180 Northern Harrier 38 597 1083 Sharp-shinned Hawk 152 7654 12903 Cooper's Hawk 21 333 382 Northern Goshawk 4 14 14 Red-shouldered Hawk 78 123 123 Broad-winged Hawk 0 764 73020 Red-tailed Hawk 345 675 699 Rough-legged Hawk 3 6 6 Golden Eagle 25 62 62 American Kestrel 20 2364 5086 Merlin 3 89 147 Peregrine Falcon 0 15 38 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1 Total: 2774 47673 128941 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Colin Horstead Observers: Don Taylor, Eric Single, Jim Dunn, Kathy, Tom Stewart Visitors: There were just 3 visitors today...Bill and Heather Wilson (Cambridge) and Jerry Guenther (also from Cambridge) who all helped with spotting the birds today. Thanks to Colin, Eric S., Don T., Kathy, Jim, Tom S. and Tim...great job with a busy flight day! Weather: A really cold start this morning...just 3C and only reaching a high of 8C. However, as hoped the rain moved through quickly overnight and by this morning the counters and visitors found skies to be cloudy but with good visiblility. Winds were also favourable... moderate to light from the NE (usually resulting in excellent flights). The cloud cover was solid for the first 6 hours then started to breakup for the last couple of hours. Raptor Observations: A great flight today as the air dried pretty quickly with the humidity dropping...total birds tallied was 2,774. The buteos finally made their first concerted push with Redtails (345) and Red-shoulders (78) and even a few Roughlegs (3 - all light morph) all passing the knoll observation site and even down near the lake. It made for an easy comparison as the kettles of buteos almost always consisted of both Redtails and Red-shoulders. An excellent count of Golden Eagles (25)....whih were a definite highlight for the visitors and counters alike...with as many as 8 in one of the hours. A few gave decent looks and it was interesting to compare them to Bald Eagles that were passing at the same time. The observers felt that at least 4 were possible adult birds...with the rest a mix of likely juvies and sub-adult birds. Other species put in an appearance as well with Osprey (2), Harriers (38), Sharpies (152), Cooper's (21), Goshawks (4), Kestrels (20), Merlins (3), Bald Eagles (10) and a large flight of TV's (2073) coming in a continuous flow from east to west. That's 13 species for the day...not bad...only missed BW and Peregrine. In fact they had 13 species in a single hour which doesn't happen often this late in the season. Non-raptor Observations: Several Loons were actually flying west today...unusual since they almost always fly directly south out over the lake. The counters also noted that passerines were passing through by the 10's of 1000's...with many massive flocks all headed westward. A conservative estimate would be 50,000+...and they continued all day...even after the hawkwatch was shutdown for the day. Predictions: There are almost certainly more birds "in the pipeline" as temps continue to drop in the central and northern parts of Ontario and Quebec...and the winds continue to be predominantly northerly even into this evening. They now are predicting some sort of northerly winds in the Hawk Cliff area and to the east...then slowly dropping into the afternoon...but hopefully another good portion of the birds will have been pushed to the lake and make for another good flight. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Dave Brown (thebrowns@ezlink.on.ca) Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch information may be found at: http://www.ezlink.on.ca/~thebrowns/HawkCliff/index.htm