Holiday Beach Hawk Watch Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 15, 2019 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 98 4438 53674 Osprey 0 0 36 Bald Eagle 1 38 231 Northern Harrier 21 268 725 Sharp-shinned Hawk 5 312 5280 Cooper's Hawk 3 39 276 Northern Goshawk 0 0 6 Red-shouldered Hawk 5 227 442 Broad-winged Hawk 0 6 25779 Red-tailed Hawk 28 1219 2037 Rough-legged Hawk 1 14 14 Golden Eagle 1 13 16 American Kestrel 0 17 1727 Merlin 1 9 116 Peregrine Falcon 0 7 58 Unknown Accipiter 0 2 7 Unknown Buteo 0 12 24 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 3 7 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1 Total: 164 6624 90456 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Maryse Gagné Observers: Dave Martin, Linda Wladarski Visitors: Thank you Noel and Juliette, Dave and Linda, and Neil and Anne for their visit and their help on the tower today. Additional thank you to Chip and Owen for bringing up an absolutely stunning adult Red-shouldered Hawk to the released from the tower! Weather: Yet another cold day on the tower with the humidity really worsening the chill. Not an easy day on the eyes with a full cloud cover creating bad lighting for identification and poor visibility all around. Winds from the South-West drove the majority of the raptors North of the marsh, forcing me to have my eyes glued to the scope. Raptor Observations: Not a bad day overall, with the usual raptors migrating past. Turkey Vultures (98) and Red-tailed Hawks (28) are still leading the charge with most migrants, followed closely by Northern Harriers (21). Other species such as the Red-shouldered Hawks, Sharp-shinned, and Cooper's Hawks are still moving past but in much smaller numbers today. Glad to count a Merlin, an adult Golden Eagle and a light morph Rough-legged Hawk as well. Lastly, today you could count 14 Bald Eagles hanging out on the frozen marsh throughout the day, often putting up the ducks and fighting over some food. Non-raptor Observations: Still counting many ducks out on the marsh, mostly Mallards. With big portions of the marsh frozen, ducks are clustered in small pockets of water and only when they fly off, say because an Eagle spooked them, can you really tell how many there are out there. Spotted a Yellow-rumped Warbler, two Great Egrets and many Tundra Swans flying over. Notable omission today were Red-winged Blackbirds. Check out our full eBird list here: https://ebird.org/checklist/S61475823 Predictions: Tomorrow we are expecting some North-Eastern winds, which could potentially bring raptors closer to the tower. Yet, raptors have a migrating mind of their own, no promises! Hoping for a good flight of buteos, Northern Harriers, and a few more Golden Eagles as they are quite low in number this year. ======================================================================== 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: http://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=100