Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 06, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 1 9 9 Bald Eagle 0 1 1 Northern Harrier 1 12 12 Sharp-shinned Hawk 5 25 25 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 0 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 16 187 187 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 10 10 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 3 27 27 Merlin 0 0 0 Peregrine Falcon 0 2 2 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: 27 274 274 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood Visitors: We are still dealing with the residue of the Covid 19 situation. The workers at the site will be in an enclosed area that is designed for four people only. We still love to interact and share our love of hawk watching with visitors. Feel free to ask questions and look over our shoulders to help you follow the birds. Watch the weather for favorable forecasts as the birds are predictable to some degree based on weather situations. One other thing of note this year; the boat-launch bathroom building has been shut down for the foreseeable future due to plumbing issues. There are Porta-Johns in the parking lot should you require them. Weather: As if to punish me for waxing a little too poetic about clouds yesterday, there was not a single one in the blue dome that presented itself when we took up the watch this morning. Sunny skies were the order of the day with a persistent western wind that gradually eased as the afternoon passed. A few small cotton ball clouds eventually developed which were useful in trying to track what few high flying broadwings that we did see. In the last hour, icy cirrus wisps moved in telling us that more precipitation is to come; forecast for tomorrow evening after the end of the watch. The barometer rose a little and then retreated, staying close to 30” all day. Raptor Observations: We were hoping that we might do a little better today and that’s what we did, moving from fourteen to twenty-six birds. At least we are trending in the right direction. Today we counted one osprey and one harrier. We saw a few more sharpies today with five passing through. One red-tail made it through along with three kestrels. We counted 15 broadwings but most were truly sky high and not readily visible even with optical aids. Non-raptor Observations: The gulls were kettling in good numbers to start the day resembling small white tornadoes. They became a nuisance as they flew very high with a good number of double-crested cormorants who were racing back and forth enjoying the fresh winds. The dark immature gulls and the cormorants often resemble raptors from a great distance and have to be visually checked out. A pied-billed grebe was seen working the edges of the mossy vegetation floating on the water. A few hummingbirds were seen buzzing by. A spotted sandpiper has been seen a couple of times flying in front of us in what seems to be a long flight for that species. A flight of about fifteen shorebirds was observed flying past, but too far away for species confirmation. One of the kestrels that flew by captured, what we think was a dragon fly, and proceeded to eat it in flight. A ring-billed gull thought it saw an opportunity for a free meal and proceeded to dive at the kestrel four or five times. The kestrel easily dodged the gull and seemed unperturbed by the unwanted attention. Predictions: Tomorrow we will have our own form of sirocco wind coming from the SW and bringing the heat. Temperatures will rise to the mid-eighties; hot air being borne on a double-digit strength wind rising to nearly twenty mph. The barometer will drop about three tenths of an inch during the day which will seal our fate. Cloud cover will increase during the day as the prelude to a rainy evening. I suspect our bird count trending in the right direction may not last another day. ======================================================================== 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