Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 09, 2025 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 2 3 3 Bald Eagle 2 6 6 Northern Harrier 1 27 27 Sharp-shinned Hawk 6 14 14 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 0 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 15 220 220 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 0 33 33 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 4 26 26 Merlin 0 2 2 Peregrine Falcon 3 7 7 Unknown Accipitrine 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 1 1 Total: 33 340 340 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Jo Patterson Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Mark Hainen Visitors: We welcome visitors to our site as we are eager to share the joys of hawk watching with one and all. Although there may be times in which we are all very busy and need alone-time to concentrate, those are the times that are most enjoyable for visitors as the skies are filled with migrating raptors. Weather: Another day of winds that seemed to exile all the birds to Elba, at least for the first three hours. The winds were slow out of the blocks and vacillated around the southern quarter for most of the day. Peaking around eight mph at 1100, a little easing was noticed in the late afternoon when there seemed to be perhaps slightly more of an eastern element. Temperatures reached the seventy-three mark and it was comfortable with very low humidity. The sky stayed clear, for the most part, with high cirrus clouds slowly developing a light veil over us, a good portion of that may have been airplane contrails spreading out over time. The barometer was dropping, although staying well above thirty inches. Birds were late to arrive, and seeing broadwings later in the day was a little surprising. Their flight line was a bit of a mystery as they popped up to the north of us with no advance warning. Raptor Observations: At first, it seemed that our high-count day for the season, was going to be followed by our low count day. The morning hours had zero birds and we had resigned ourselves to a wasted day until the first afternoon hour. Broadwings made a late run in the last hour to snatch victory from the jaws etc. etc. with fifteen total. Sharp-shinned hawks are still waiting in their staging area for the most part, but their numbers should start to increase fairly soon. We counted six today. Their usual traveling companions at this time of year, the kestrels, put four on the board. Only one harrier was noted. The larger birds were powering through today, with two each of the bald eagle and osprey species being counted. Young peregrines also seemed to be on the move with three counted. Non-raptor Observations: Pelicans seem to be moving closer to us with some of them roosting by the jetty near Celeron Island. Flights of various sizes made appearances in the morning hours. The small group of common terns passed through again. They do not appear to be interested in feeding in our area though. A red-bellied woodpecker was noted across the slip on a bare branch which has held a flicker, a cedar waxwing, and other birds from time to time. There has been a pair of great egrets that seem to be holding a grudge against each other. Today they blew off some steam in a little ado. (NYT’s crossword word for fight) I think Mark may have some pictures on our Detroit River Hawk Watch Facebook page tonight. The swallows were on the periphery today, fairly distant, as were the gulls for some reason. The monarch count was the opposite of the bird count with most of them in the morning, and very few in the afternoon. Thirty-six were counted. Predictions: Tomorrow’s weather will be very similar to todays, but with more clouds. The barometer will be lower, but still above 30.1 inches. Temperatures will be a couple of degrees higher in the seventy-five-degree range. Winds will switch to the southwest in the morning hours and climb, but peak lower than they did today, at six mph. That is a fairly mild wind so perhaps we will see more birds tomorrow. As forecast currently, Thursday may be better with moderate northerly winds predicted. We are getting into the time frame where we might start to see larger congregations of broadwings, although, historically, it is still early. ======================================================================== 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