Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 07, 2020 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 47 669 72162 Osprey 0 0 31 Bald Eagle 0 2 57 Northern Harrier 2 22 406 Sharp-shinned Hawk 17 57 4978 Cooper's Hawk 3 10 80 Northern Goshawk 0 0 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 5 71 677 Broad-winged Hawk 0 0 16407 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 109 324 2938 Rough-legged Hawk 0 1 9 Golden Eagle 4 21 39 American Kestrel 0 1 640 Merlin 1 4 57 Peregrine Falcon 2 2 96 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 2 Unknown Falcon 0 0 1 Unknown Eagle 0 0 1 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 190 1184 98582 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 09:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 7 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: Another day of southerly winds with high pressure, 30.3”, dropping a little during the day but not enough to be of any consequence. The sun was present all day with only high thin clouds and slow-to-disperse aircraft vapor trails to dull its attack. Winds were fairly consistent at around eight mph. It was another day straight from the copy machine. Very different from last November when I think we were sitting in snow about this time. Raptor Observations: The raptors followed the same script as the last few days too. Most of the flight came from the north towards us from a very small sector of the sky. It was another day in the mines for us as we had to mine birds from a very hazy sky which hampered our view, like looking for diamonds in the shimmering rough. We were fortunate to have a fair number of birds come our way during the moving hours. Like the previous days, the flight stopped completely in the late afternoon hours. Turkey vultures were late to start with forty seven eventually coming through. Two harriers rowed by. Sharp-shins are still flying with seventeen showing us their tails. Cooper’s hawks were also present with three. Falcons were showing up today with two peregrines and one merlin. They must have been hungry since they were making runs at other birds, and as usual, fighting above their weight class going after birds bigger than themselves. Red-shoulders were few and far between with only five making the show. Red-tails found today to their liking and we were lucky to be able to mine one hundred and nine out of the haze. Four golden eagles passed through early in the day. Non-raptor Observations: The early day was filled with passing flocks of passerines. Many black-bird variants, including brown-headed cowbirds and red-winged blackbirds were noted. Also, cedar waxwings, goldfinches and pipits were seen in passing. The tree swallows were absent early but came back to interfere with our view along with the gulls that were present in large numbers in the afternoon sky. We saw three monarch butterflies today as befits the warm, early fall-like temperatures. Predictions: Tomorrow will be another sunny day with winds from the southern quadrant but of low strength to start and not getting much stronger. That may affect our flight and flight line. Hopefully, we can get some traffic with SE winds of less than 5 mph. The barometer will stay high and actually climb as perhaps are nearing the center of the high. One more day of similar weather before the pressure starts to drop and on Tuesday we should have rain and low pressure before a nice rebound with better winds on Wednesday. ======================================================================== 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