Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 02, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 87 413 4531 Osprey 0 1 20 Bald Eagle 0 0 34 Northern Harrier 10 50 246 Sharp-shinned Hawk 110 432 3346 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 11 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 5 Broad-winged Hawk 0 2 22224 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 2 63 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 1 American Kestrel 5 56 705 Merlin 0 0 23 Peregrine Falcon 3 3 29 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: 216 959 31239 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, Mark Hainen, Shourjya Majumder 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: We knew the job was dangerous when we took it. Today’s forecast did not look promising going in. Southerly winds that would grow in strength after early fits and starts finally shut down the modest movement that we had. The barometer did not fall much but it did begin its decline which was accelerating as we left. Rain came a little earlier than predicted and the radar showed an ugly yellow blob with red accents approaching our way. Time to run away a few minutes early. The increasing cloud cover was mostly high cirrus clouds looking wispy and icy and promising that rain was to come. There was a sundog in the morning, another indication of ice crystals aloft. Temperatures fell short of this morning’s prediction by about eight degrees, topping out around seventy. With the SE wind coming off the lake it felt much cooler. Raptor Observations: I spent the afternoon investigating the various shades of porcine lipstick available to use for this report. It has since occurred to me that today was only bad in comparison to the past few days and that we had done much worse this year. It was hoped that the sharpies and harriers would continue to fly but their numbers were diminished with one hundred and ten, and ten, respectively. Turkey vultures were again hard to find with only eighty-seven counted. Perhaps they were aware of the impending disturbance in the weather and decided to sit out the dance today. Only one buteo was counted with a lone red-tailed hawk noted. Five kestrels were tallied, another disappointing total. Three peregrine falcons were seen during the day, two in the afternoon when not much else was moving. Considering we are entering a turbulent area of weather; it is not surprising that the birds would avoid it. Non-raptor Observations: Today was fairly quiet on the non-raptor front, as it was on the raptor front. Our highlight of the day was a flyover by five Hudsonian godwits. These birds seem to be much more common this year, perhaps the result of different wind patterns this year, or other contributing factors. Otherwise, the blue jays continued their diaspora out of Canada with over thirty thousand counted. Monarchs were up in the thirty plus range today. Gulls and cormorants were less in evidence today but I’m sure they will return. Predictions: Tomorrow looks worse than today. Whether or not it actually rains all day is probably irrelevant as this low-pressure disturbance will last past Sunday into Monday. The barometer will end up a couple of tenths lower in the afternoon. Winds will be generally SW at about today’s strength. None of these are encouraging signs and it may well be that we get some well-earned time off tomorrow. The rest of the week looks a little contrary with high pressure on the barometer but low-pressure symptoms like heavy cloud cover and about twenty percent chance of rain all week. Winds should be favorable from the NE as forecast, but they have not behaved as predicted this week so it may be prudent to wait and see how this actually develops. ======================================================================== 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-2021