Holiday Beach Hawk Watch Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 29, 2020 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 206 1962 1962 Osprey 1 5 5 Bald Eagle 1 30 30 Northern Harrier 9 207 207 Sharp-shinned Hawk 262 3865 3865 Cooper's Hawk 5 68 68 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 1 1 Broad-winged Hawk 0 45173 45173 Red-tailed Hawk 0 184 184 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 129 1157 1157 Merlin 9 95 95 Peregrine Falcon 5 42 42 Unknown Accipiter 0 1 1 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 1 1 Swainson's Hawk 0 1 1 Total: 627 52792 52792 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 9 hours Official Counter: Maryse Gagné Observers: Noel Herdman Visitors: We appreciate all the interest in the tower and the hawk watch but remind everyone that the tower remains closed to members of the public and has a three-person limit reserved for the Hawk Counters. Thank you to all who are respecting these precautions. Be safe everyone! Weather: After yesterday's rain, today stayed much cooler than the previous week. A good breeze blew from the South-West all day, and brought along heavy clouds in the afternoon. By the end of the day, any speck of blue and sunshine had long been gone. Raptor Observations: A really successful day on the tower with 627 raptors, with our main flyer being the Sharp-shinned Hawk (262). Turkey Vultures are revving up, and starting to move, with 206 TVs crossing the marsh today. To our delight, today was all about falcons! 129 American Kestrel zipped by, followed by 9 Merlins and 5 Peregrine Falcons. The variety of species was good today as we also included a few Cooper's Hawks, migrating Ospreys and Bald Eagles, and Northern Harriers. Non-raptor Observations: I'm running out of clever ways to talk about the number of Blue Jays flying by, so I will keep it simple; today we counted a lot of Blue Jays, 53,050 individuals! Our season's count is now approaching the 400,000 mark. We shall see if they continue to move. In the afternoon, a good little fall of warbler came through with 9 species counted including Orange-crowned Warbler, Northern Parula, and Black-throated Green Warbler. We counted many American Goldfinches but also a few Purple Finches and Pine Siskins. Swallows, mostly Tree Swallows and a few Purple Martin, were spotted feeding over the marsh, and a good 30 Chimney Swifts were counted throughout the day. Full ebird checklist: https://ebird.org/checklist/S74223166 Predictions: More South-Western winds tomorrow, which does not seem to deter the birds as much as you would expect. It is the perfect time for Peregrine Falcons and they seem to enjoy floating along the beach in the SW winds. Hopefully we will count a few more tomorrow. As we move into October, we should start to see more buteos testing the skies to start their migration. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Maryse Gagné (maryse.gagne35@gmail.com) Holiday Beach Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/ More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=100