Holiday Beach Hawk Watch Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 03, 2024 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 1001 2085 3982 Osprey 0 1 22 Bald Eagle 3 22 149 Northern Harrier 18 40 563 Sharp-shinned Hawk 98 331 5702 Cooper's Hawk 0 5 95 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 1 Broad-winged Hawk 3 49 4307 Red-tailed Hawk 4 16 388 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 24 63 1435 Merlin 0 0 57 Peregrine Falcon 2 4 45 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Mississippi Kite 0 0 1 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1 Total: 1153 2616 16748 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Kiah Jasper Observers: Hugh Kent, Mike Jaber, Peter Veighey Visitors: Thanks to Hugh, Mike and Peter for helping me out with the count and keeping me company today. We were visited by Alban from Leamington as well as Ken and Eihne from Guelph. Weather: The temperature started off at 16 Degrees C, rising to a toasty 26 in the afternoon. The wind was light (5-15kph) out of the Southwest/South for the entire day. There was basically no cloud cover besides vapor trails left by passing commercial jets (sometimes over 20% "cloud cover"!). The barometer remained around 29.90. Raptor Observations: Even though we had over 1,100 raptors today, it felt like a fairly slow day on the tower. This was because in the morning we were only seeing around 10 birds per hour, and in the afternoon the bulk of our numbers came from several brief pushes of Turkey Vultures. It was another one of those days when the birds are so distant they're only specks in your binoculars, and you really have to strain your eyes to see them. Our highlights today were two Peregrine Falcons that flew by in the morning. Non-raptor Observations: It was a slower day on the non raptor front as well, with a fairly minimal passerine flight in the morning. 33,190 Blue Jays were counted, good numbers but less than we've had most days in the past week. 3 species of warblers were seen from the tower today. Highlight species included; 1 Indigo Bunting, 1 Red-headed Woodpecker and a Common Nighthawk (late for this date). We also had our first Horned Lark of the season fly over. 74 species were seen from the tower today, for the full list see this eBird link - https://ebird.org/checklist/S197405998 Predictions: Tomorrow the wind is expected to be light out of the North/Northwest, the sky clear and the temperatures pleasant (over 22C). If the wind does come from the North all day, we should see a decent (and hopefully closer!) flight of raptors. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Kiah Jasper (kiahbirder@gmail.com) Holiday Beach Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/ More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=100