Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 10, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 0 9 9 Bald Eagle 2 3 3 Northern Harrier 8 20 20 Sharp-shinned Hawk 6 35 35 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 0 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 13 208 208 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 0 10 10 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 5 34 34 Merlin 0 0 0 Peregrine Falcon 0 2 2 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 1 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 34 322 322 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Mark Hainen 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: Much like Goldilocks, we finally found a day that was much closer to being “just right”. The wind started in the NW barely ticking over the wind turbines. It kept us cool and comfortable most of the day, erratically shifting in fits and starts around to the S by the end of the watch. Temperatures were kept at a reasonable level just north of seventy by the mild breezes. An ideal sky to count sheep, as fluffy, bright white cumulus encroached almost unnoticed until their presence dominated the view. They served their purpose as a backdrop to help locate some of the high flyers that came our way in greater numbers today. Raptor Observations: We finally had a day that recharged our batteries somewhat and left us with a renewed sense of purpose. Searching the sky and finding nothing is not our idea of nirvana. Today we had little runs with multiple birds sometimes passing at once. The broadwings came in small numbers today as it testing the waters for the big movement to come. We totaled twenty. We finally saw a few sharpies as seven of them passed by. Their numbers should pick up soon. The falcons were represented by the kestrels who numbered six. Harriers were passing in pairs, as they are in the habit of doing, totaling eight. We saw two bald eagles that we thought were on a mission to get further south today, the locals were populating the sky in good numbers too. Non-raptor Observations: They missed World Shorebirds Day by four days but we did have a couple of appearances by lesser yellow legs today. Sometimes we see them land and work the vegetation close-by but so far, nothing this year. A pair of blue-winged teal raced by at teal speed (very fast). We don’t see too much variety in ducks, except for the permutations that the domestic ducks have created in our mallards, so any new species is welcome. We work in a slip that is not on the normal flyway for the ducks, although we see very impressive numbers later in the year far off in the sky lined up in long strings. The metro-park still has plenty of warblers although you have to walk the trails to see them. A yellow-billed cuckoo was also reported. We had our best monarch butterfly day today with four hundred, forty five counted. Predictions: Increasing winds from the SSW up to seventeen mph, a barometer that takes a relative plunge just after the start of the watch; where have I heard that before? We may be back in the birding doldrums tomorrow unless our sharpies, kestrels and harriers come through for us. Not the most promising of forecasts for our purposes. ======================================================================== 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 Count data submitted via Dunkadoo - Project info at: https://dunkadoo.org/explore/detroit-river-international-wildlife-refuge/detroit-river-hawk-watch-fall-2021