Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 14, 2023 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 3 39 39 Bald Eagle 3 43 43 Northern Harrier 14 109 109 Sharp-shinned Hawk 69 1470 1470 Cooper's Hawk 4 9 9 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 6817 15486 15486 Red-tailed Hawk 3 15 15 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 55 303 303 Merlin 2 12 12 Peregrine Falcon 2 7 7 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: 6972 17493 17493 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 06:00:00 Observation end time: 14:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Dave Brown Observers: Matt Oswald, Ronnie Goodhand, Tom Stewart Visitors: A pile of visitors today including a group from Holland and they all got to enjoy a wonderful flight with lots of kettles to check out right overhead. Thanks to all of the observers that helped me with the count today including Matt, Tom S, Ronnie G, Jeff S., Harold and Claude. Weather: The day started cool under brilliant sunshine and pure blue skies. By mid morning the clouds started to form as the thermals built and the raptor flight really got going. Temp started at 10C and got to a high of 20C. The humidity dropped quickly and the pressure went up making for a pleasant day of hawk watching. The winds were fairly steady from the NW and then NNW before backing to straight W which then shut down the flight. Raptor Observations: Another very good flight today with 6,972 raptors tallied the bulk of which were Broadwings (6,817). The Sharpies (69) and Am Kestrels (55) stayed pretty much within easy view just above the tree tops while the Broadwings started low and ended the flight disappearing once again into the clouds. Non-raptor Observations: We noted a few non-raptors today including some family groups... adult and young Gray Catbirds, Northern Cardinals and Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers. We also had a very noisy Red-bellied Woodpecker hanging around and a bunch of Ruby-throated Hummingbirds putting on a show for the photographers. The only warblers I had were Magnolia and Nashville and I didn't hear of any others. A couple of Swainson's Thrushes were also reported. On the MONARCH front... they were noticeably migrating through today and our tally put their number over 1000 for the count period. This is almost certainly an undercount as were had another busy day counting the birds... but there always seemed to be several Monarchs in the air at all times. Predictions: The weather prognosticators are forecasting winds starting E and backing to the SE and S for Friday so I'm not expecting many birds to pass through the hawk watch area (because the S winds push them too far inland). ======================================================================== Report submitted by Dave Brown (ez.raptor1210@gmail.com) Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch information may be found at: http://www.ezlink.ca/~thebrowns/HawkCliff/index.htm More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=392