Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 24, 2020 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 21 1204 1204 Osprey 1 14 14 Bald Eagle 1 23 23 Northern Harrier 3 102 102 Sharp-shinned Hawk 126 1426 1426 Cooper's Hawk 0 6 6 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 2 2 Broad-winged Hawk 0 15628 15628 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 2 116 116 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 7 285 285 Merlin 0 8 8 Peregrine Falcon 1 10 10 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 1 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 162 18825 18825 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Sam Heilman Visitors: While Lake Erie Metropark is currently open to the public, for the safety of our counter and volunteers we encourage visitors to follow along with the count virtually on HawkCount.org, or our Detroit River Hawk Watch Facebook page. There will be daily updates and photographs. If you do decide to join us in person, please help the counter and volunteers to follow their mandated safety protocols by refraining from approaching them. Please follow the recommended Covid 19 procedures by wearing a mask and maintaining a safe social distance. Thanking you in advance for your cooperation. Stay safe! Weather: We seem to be stuck in a Groundhog Day weather loop with continuing blue skies paled by the haze overhead. The wind was from the SW today and increased enough to have the sharpies pushed to their right as they quartered on it and flew by at a rapid pace. The thin wispy clouds were mostly the result of dissipating contrails from high flying jets. We are at the stage where we are ready to offer our kingdom for a cloud of substance. The shiny blue skies are our hardest to work with and very tiring on the ocular apparatus. The barometer showed little change hanging around the 30” mark plus and minus a little. Change is coming however; it is just taking forever to arrive. Raptor Observations: As expected, sharp-shins were the order of the day. The light winds left us with zero birds in the first hour but the old reliable sharpies picked up the pace gradually and we ended with a total of one hundred and twenty seven. We noted twenty one turkey vultures well to the north of us. One osprey and one bald eagle were also counted. Only three harriers stroked their way through. Two red-tails were noted with some TVs. In the falcon family, we had one peregrine that raced through using the wind to best advantage and seven kestrels filled out the family tree. Non-raptor Observations: The star of the day again was the massive blue jay movement in which we counted/estimated north of 40,000 souls. Bird migration is a truly awesome thing when you see in en masse as we have witnessed the last three days and the birds have been moving in lesser numbers before the last few spectacular days.. Although we would have rather seen the broad-wings, the blue jays are truly impressive. We calculated that every yard in Canada must have at least seventeen resident birds at the rate they are leaving. We also saw the danger of migration when out local Cooper’s hawk took an interest in one of the migrants and chased it for a few seconds. The hawk lost interest and went to hide in the nearby tree as it had lost the element of surprise that it uses so well with its blitzkrieg attacks. We had a few warblers behind us today but only noted one yellow-rumped with an ID. Flickers, jays, robins and grackles were busy in the brush to our rear. One white dove flew by, no doubt a symbol of peace that we could all use. Predictions: Variety is the spice of life and tomorrow we will have winds building from a very low start to a moderate level from the… wait for it; SE instead of SW; in other words, more of the same. Sunny skies will continue to blind us and hopefully, sharpies will continue to come. The barometer will waffle but stay reasonably high with a gradual drop in the coming days when the chances of rain will hopefully bring a low with a resulting rebound with northern winds that will bring the larger winged birds. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Kevin Georg (kevin.l.georg@gmail.com) Detroit River Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://www.detroitriverhawkwatch.org More site information at hawkcount.org: http://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=285