Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 11, 2020 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 10904 30475 32261 Osprey 1 6 29 Bald Eagle 2 15 40 Northern Harrier 6 143 274 Sharp-shinned Hawk 26 2217 4170 Cooper's Hawk 6 28 37 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 5 16 18 Broad-winged Hawk 15 671 16401 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 65 158 283 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 3 236 623 Merlin 1 14 33 Peregrine Falcon 3 49 77 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 1 1 2 Unknown Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 11038 34030 54249 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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, Don Sherwood 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: A day that held promise with wind and barometer conditions setting the stage for a large movement turned out to deliver, but with fish hooks that kept it from being a special day. The movement was there with E and ENE winds but the strength of the winds drove a lot of the birds to cut the corner and fly over the lake in the sunny haze. The sky alternated between cloudy decks and clear skies as if we were passing through the outlying bands of a hurricane. The barometer stayed fairly stable at 30.1” most of the day but dropped a tenth later in the day. It was a curious day in some regards as the scene changed drastically from hour to hour. The wind was fresh off the lake and yesterday’s warm temps were blown away. Raptor Observations: The birds were on the move today, as we expected, but most of them kept their distance and it was difficult to ID some of the birds at a distance in less than ideal viewing conditions. Turkey vultures are distinct and easily identified at distance by shape and their behavior. They are a social bird and kettling and streaming is how they migrate. Their dihedral and angular shape are dead giveaways when seeing them in large groups, we look for dissimilar shapes like flat wing position or smaller size when searching a group for hitchhikers of other species. At great distances it is easy to see that a bird is not a TV but hard to tell exactly what it is, so we may have missed some of the migrating raptors. The turkey vultures were the bird of the day, as is expected in October, with ten thousand, nine hundred and six passing through the turnstiles. The other species were not so enthusiastic today although the morning hours presented difficult viewing conditions with the birds far away on the sunny side. The buteos were moving today but we left some on the table due to distance and haze. Fifty six red-tails were noted, fifteen broad-wings accompanied the TVs, and five red-shoulders completed the buteo roster. Six harriers showed us their white rump. Only twenty six sharp-shins made their presence known, a big drop off from previous days. Six Cooper’s hawks were seen. It was a slow day on the falcon front too, with only three kestrels, one merlin and three peregrines seen from our vantage point. It must be repeated that with the winds today, our vantage point may not have been the best. We are fortunate to have a dedicated counter such as Kevin Georg on days such as this. Non-raptor Observations: Even the gulls were sitting down today, facing into the wind on the water and causing no problems for viewing for the most part. Since most of our day was spent searching distance skies for migrating raptors it was the back burner for other species. Lots of flights of cormorants were seen including one curious sight of a shorebird flying in a vee of cormorants despite it being one tenth the size of the rest of the flight. Predictions: With strong winds from the SE and a precipitous drop in barometric pressure, the day does not look promising. Rain is predicted just after the watch’s normal closing hours. It would seem to be a day for sharpie movement and possible turkey vulture movement but it does not hold the promise that today did. ======================================================================== 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: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=285