Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 17, 2019 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 70 111 111 Osprey 1 22 22 Bald Eagle 9 33 33 Northern Harrier 11 96 96 Sharp-shinned Hawk 131 844 844 Cooper's Hawk 1 7 7 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 23603 58761 58761 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 20 87 87 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 36 169 169 Merlin 1 7 7 Peregrine Falcon 1 5 5 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 Total: 23884 60142 60142 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:30:00 Total observation time: 8.5 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Frank Kitakis, Mark Hainen, Rosemary Brady Visitors: The early visitors got another special day of kettles and streams. Afternoon, not so much. There was a late flow of high flying birds that satisfied most in attendance. Weather: Another day of variable cloudiness that went from full cloud to scattered by the end of the day. Winds went from NE to mostly E as the skies cleared. Barometer stayed high with a little tail off in the last hour or so. Raptor Observations: Another day that would seem to favor buteo movement with the wind direction and it delivered. 24 thousand broad-wings started early and made the trip overhead. A slight lull in the afternoon hours but a few thousand started up late in the proceedings. Sharp-shinneds were plentiful with 127, 36 kestrels were booked, and harriers were in double digits again. The flow of BWHA seemed to pull others along with them and we counted 20 Red-tailed hawks and 59 turkey vultures today. Bald eagles were seen in the streams and we notched 9 cuts in the eagle stick. Non-raptor Observations: The monarchs seemed to return to a more normal flow this morning but picked up the pace late. When we are busy with kettles of broad-wings the monarchs take a back seat on the clicker but we estimated approximately 3000 today. Still a very good count but nothing like the unprecedented day we had yesterday. Predictions: We seem to entering a large high pressure area with high temps and winds with a more southerly component to them for the next few days. Not usually conducive to large flights of buteos but there should be some birds on the move and the broad-wings are definitely trying to get out of Dodge. ======================================================================== 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