Holiday Beach Hawk Watch Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 13, 2019 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 0 24 24 Osprey 0 6 6 Bald Eagle 0 29 29 Northern Harrier 2 93 93 Sharp-shinned Hawk 23 426 426 Cooper's Hawk 0 25 25 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 0 374 374 Red-tailed Hawk 0 55 55 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 5 182 182 Merlin 4 17 17 Peregrine Falcon 1 4 4 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 1 1 Swainson's Hawk 0 1 1 Total: 35 1237 1237 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Maryse Gagne Observers: Elizabeth Kent, Hugh Kent Visitors: Thank you Jim McCoy and two visitors from Ohio for saying hello. Also thank you to a group of young naturalists from the Nature Learning Center for stopping-by and being so keen on bird watching. Weather: Our day started hot and humid with winds from the South and South-East. Around 3 o'clock, dark clouds accompanied by thunder rolled in. Naturally, we left the tower and headed to the HBMO office when the thunderstorm hit us hard. We stayed in and let the massive weather event take place. After the worst had passed, we were left with many fallen branches, some of which were blocking off the road and one narrowly missing the office itself. Quite the storm, hopefully all the birds took shelter before it hit! Raptor Observations: A very slow day for the raptors, with only 35 raptors counted and the majority being Sharp-shinned hawks (23). We also counted 4 Merlins, to our surprise, travelling together and a Peregrine Falcon. We also observed our local Osprey and Bald Eagles. Non-raptor Observations: In the morning we had good warbler activity, seeing many Magnolia, Redstarts, Cape May and Black-throated Green warlbers milling around the tower. We also observed over 600 swallows, mostly Tree Swallows feeding in the marsh and over 150 Monarchs. Our highlight of the day was spotting an American Bitter as it flew over the marsh. Tree Swallows: 500 Purple Martins: 106 Barn Swallows: 60 Cedar Waxwings: 282 Monarchs: 167 Ruby-throated hummingbird: 2 https://ebird.org/view/checklist/S59777698 Predictions: Tomorrow we are expecting another hot day with highs around 24 degree Celsius and with winds from the West. We hope this will bring us many raptors for our Hawk Festival, notably Sharp-shinned hawks and maybe a kettle or two of Broad-winged hawks, fingers crossed! ======================================================================== Report submitted by Maryse Gagne (maryse.gagne35@gmail.com) Holiday Beach Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/ More site information at hawkcount.org: http://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=100