Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 28, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 4110 59913 Osprey 0 2 26 Bald Eagle 0 14 81 Northern Harrier 0 26 379 Sharp-shinned Hawk 0 164 6568 Cooper's Hawk 0 11 50 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 171 489 Broad-winged Hawk 0 0 21973 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 3 1999 3614 Rough-legged Hawk 0 3 4 Golden Eagle 0 46 61 American Kestrel 0 0 1068 Merlin 1 18 67 Peregrine Falcon 0 14 70 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 4 6578 94364 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 12:00:00 Observation end time: 14:00:00 Total observation time: 2 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: Our visit from Alberta was a little longer and stronger than we anticipated. The ground was covered in snow this morning and there were a few leftovers coming our way, as befits the holiday. The erratic, changeable weather today caused us to delay the start and eventually cut short the day. Continuing snow squalls that were quite heavy at times, created near white-outs as they passed by, only to be followed by white cumulus clouds in a sunny sky, for a moment, then it was rinse and repeat. The temperatures were just above freezing making for a wet heavy snow. Winds came from the W with increasing vigor, pushing the squalls quickly. The barometer was still below thirty inches but is on its way back to that reading. Raptor Observations: We were still dealing with the remains of the Alberta Clipper that passed through and this was not conducive to good migration counts. We counted three red-tails today and one merlin. The weather has not been our friend recently and we haven’t had good conditions with the right winds to see the big movements. Non-raptor Observations: A lot of the gulls were riding the waves today in little flotillas just waiting for some sanity in the weather. A small fight of hooded mergansers flew by again today. Perhaps its time to call them the “local mergansers.” Pipits were heard flying over this morning. The local bald eagles were seen flying. Predictions: The winds should be tapering off tomorrow into the five to ten range switching from WNW to SSW early in the day. The barometer will bust the thirty-inch barrier with room to spare. It will peak around midday and then start to decline again. Skies should be mostly cloudy and more snow is predicted later in the evening. A large high-pressure system with NE winds would be nice, but this ain’t it. The graph of barometric pressure predictions for the next few days looks like a plan for a roller coaster ride at Cedar Point. ======================================================================== 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