Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 08, 2020 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 4443 17609 19337 Osprey 1 5 28 Bald Eagle 1 11 36 Northern Harrier 25 111 232 Sharp-shinned Hawk 554 1785 3738 Cooper's Hawk 3 15 24 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 6 8 Broad-winged Hawk 63 650 16376 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 15 76 201 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 50 210 594 Merlin 1 12 31 Peregrine Falcon 8 40 68 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 1 Unknown Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 5164 20531 40675 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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, Sam Heilman 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: You couldn’t ask for a greater contrast this morning from the scene we left yesterday. The winds had vanished, the clouds had vanished, the spinning wind turbines had vanished, and for a brief time, the birds had vanished. It was an absolutely blue sky with nary a cloud to be found and not even a zephyr of a breeze to provide lift for the migrants. The forecast for winds today had absolutely nothing to do with what happened and even Windy, the wind app, was showing something that we did not see. Our winds eventually grew, but from the S not the W as predicted. The barometer was up about three tenths to 30.3” to start the day, it dropped a tenth in the afternoon hours as clouds eventually filled in giving us the perfect sky to find birds with lots of reference points to use. The moderate strength of the wind caused the birds to fly high today so we needed all the help we could get. Raptor Observations: It was “sharpiepalooza” today as once the birds started flying they kept coming. Five hundred and fifty four made the flight today in much easier conditions than yesterday. Three Cooper’s kept them company. The turkey vultures kept up their parade with four thousand, four hundred and forty three counted in a near constant stream once the winds picked up and they lifted off. The flight path was not as consistent as yesterday as the lighter winds allowed a choice of paths to follow, some taking the very high road towards day’s end. One osprey was noted flying with the vultures. One bald eagle pumped his way through. We were hoping for more buteos today with the forecast but that did not hold up as predicted. We had fifteen red-tails, one red-shouldered, and sixty four broad-winged hawks. Twenty five harriers came across, always a pleasure to see these unique birds. On the falcon front, we had a decent day with fifty kestrels, one merlin and eight peregrine falcons. We seem to be short on kestrels this year so it was nice to see them in numbers. Winds have not been our friends this year. Non-raptor Observations: The interesting non-raptor sightings of the day were a couple of view of sandhill cranes and later, a flight of about forty five American white pelicans. Lots of gulls continued to hawk insects up in the sky, becoming visual nuisances at times when trying to find high flying raptors. A few more monarchs than usual were seen flying in the lighter winds today. Predictions: Another tricky day to decipher tomorrow with very low winds to start and then growing in strength to double digits from the S. Although the sharpies and kestrels will probably fly, along with the turkey vultures, they may be pushed to the north by the strength of the winds. The barometer will start to drop in the afternoon hours as another small low comes through. Then again, like today, none of this may happen as it is hard to predict air masses and their interactions precisely. ======================================================================== 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