Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 22, 2022 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 15 75 75 Osprey 1 12 12 Bald Eagle 0 21 21 Northern Harrier 13 125 125 Sharp-shinned Hawk 185 1842 1842 Cooper's Hawk 1 7 7 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 1907 33414 33414 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 7 104 104 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 120 575 575 Merlin 2 17 17 Peregrine Falcon 2 14 14 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 2253 36206 36206 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Bill Peregord, Don Sherwood, Erika Van Kirk Visitors: We are located by the boat launch in Lake Erie Metropark in a fenced off area at the Hawk Watch site. This does not mean that we do not welcome interaction with any and all visitors. We enjoy talking about what we do and sharing our knowledge with beginners and experts alike. Please feel free to come up and talk to us. We usually have our backs turned to the parking lot as we scan the skies in front of us. This should not be interpreted as a sign of reluctance to engage; this is how we do our job. We have friendly people that do not bite and the welcome mat is always out. Weather: Fighting to maintain position, trying to stay the course despite a relentlessly persistent, gusty wind from the NW was the mission for today; and that was just us, the birds had it even harder. If yesterday was summer’s last heyday, then fall blew in like a lion today. Of course, these are favored traveling conditions for raptors, the leading edge of a high seems to reward us with our highest counts. Today was nothing for the record books number wise, but it was a pleasant surprise to see quite a few birds despite the helter-skelter winds from a direction that usually pushes the raptors to our Canadian colleagues at Holiday Beach. (It did today, but we got some leftovers) The sky was filled with dramatic cumulus clouds for the most part with occasional teasing gaps of blue that never lasted long before filling in again with gray bottomed heavyweights. Temperatures were considerably lower today, as predicted, only reaching sixty-one degrees, with the wind, it felt a few degrees cooler. Rather than falling, as predicted, the winds actually seemed to gain strength in late afternoon after some brief lulls, gusts were in the high twenty mph range. The barometer climbed throughout the day from the low of yesterday. One more day of increased pressure is predicted before dropping again. The winds should be more tolerable tomorrow and hopefully the birds will continue to take advantage. Raptor Observations: Broadwings led the way with 1,907 birds. We are starting to see more adult birds in the mix now. Our biggest kettles were to the south toward the lake which usually means we are missing a lot of them. We did have enough birds fight their way into the wind to make the day interesting. Sharp-shins and kestrels continue to run the gauntlet with 185 and 120 respectively. We had a fairly decent harrier day with 13 noted. We counted 15 turkey vultures today as a few of the premature evacuators seem to be feeling the urge to go. Usually, we don’t start counting them until the last week of September, or thereabouts. We may get a few hundred a day then, and in October that turns to thousands a day. The falcon hat trick was once again achieved with a pair of both merlins and peregrine falcons racing by in the high winds. We also noted 7 red-tailed hawks today. A single osprey and Cooper’s hawk were also tallied. Non-raptor Observations: We did see a few American White Pelicans up today. At one time they seemed to be in one of the larger kettles of broadwings that we saw. A handful of lesser yellow-legs passed through our airspace. Some of the cormorants were taking advantage of the high winds and were seen soaring high aloft, not something that you normally think of with these birds but a lot of birds go up to fly high where you don’t normally see them. Plenty of swallows continue their never-ending flights and quite a few gulls had taken to the skies with them. The high drama of the day was when a young argonaut took to the seas only to find her jet ski disabled by floating vegetation in the intake to the pump; no water, no go. We see this frequently at this time of year but since the winds were high and pushing her out to the lake, it grew from a minor thing to possibly one with more serious consequences. After the best part of an hour when she had drifted out near the shipping channel and rescue seemed unlikely in the near term, we called the Coast Guard and also enlisted the help of a fisherman that was headed out that way. He managed start the tow in before her father finally arrived in a small boat that had no business being out in those winds. I did not see a lot of smiling faces as they passed our location on the way in. Predictions: Tomorrow is forecast to be sunny with much more moderate winds. They should stay in the single digits from the NNW region, which may help us a little. After an overnight low of forty degrees the temperature should warm to the low sixties but the lower strength winds should make that feel more comfortable than today’s test. The barometer will continue to rise until cresting before falling again on Saturday as more thunderstorms may arrive on the weekend. Although the wind is not our favored NE wind, the signs are all positive for good bird movement and hopefully the pipeline continues to produce. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Andrew Sturgess (ajyes72@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 Count data submitted via Dunkadoo - Project info at: https://dunkadoo.org/explore/detroit-river-international-wildlife-refuge/detroit-river-hawk-watch-fall-2022