Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 10, 2020 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 19 19 Osprey 0 5 5 Bald Eagle 0 12 12 Northern Harrier 2 12 12 Sharp-shinned Hawk 12 17 17 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 0 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 27 36 36 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 2 19 19 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 16 48 48 Merlin 0 0 0 Peregrine Falcon 0 1 1 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: 59 170 170 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Rosemary Brady, 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: In the word’s of a wise philosopher “It’s déjà vu all over again”. To stay in the baseball vein, “Somewhere the sun is shining”. Not for us though, we went through the early morning hours with fog with light drizzle and it continued to mimic yesterday’s weather with gray overcast skies until day’s end. I thought that perhaps three days of NE winds was too good to be true and so it was. We have greater hopes for tomorrow as the sun will finally show its face. The wind will continue from the NE and the barometer, which at 30.3” was as high as we have seen it this year, will stay high. We saw the potential of these conditions today as we had fragments of a solid flight on the edges of the darker clouds. Raptor Observations: I suspect Holiday Beach may have had a better day than us today as it seemed lighter in that direction and we could see sunlight on the wind turbines in Canada for a few minutes as we shut down for the day. We finally had a few sharp-shins fly by, totaling twelve for the day. Our broad-winged total zoomed up to 27, including a small kettle of seven birds. Two red-tails were observed. Kestrels continued to move in better numbers than the sharp-shins with 16 on the day. Two harriers were spotted later in the day. Non-raptor Observations: The usual members of our entourage were at work today. Local eagles and osprey were looking for fish in their respective ways. The Caspian terns continued with the adult followed by the juvenile calling its plaintive plea for a free meal. Two common loons were seen at different times. One nighthawk was seen passing over. Swallows and swifts are still very plentiful although their prey is hard to see. Although a warbling vireo was heard, little was seen of the migrant warblers and other passerines Predictions: Well, maybe the third time is the charm. The sun will come out tomorrow, (hmmm), at least it is predicted to at the start of the watch. The wind will continue in low double digits from the NE quadrant and the barometer will be north of 30”. Perhaps it will look like a high pressure day finally. The last two days got off to dark soggy starts with dry dark endings but hope springs eternal. ======================================================================== 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