Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 12, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 672 2188 6306 Osprey 0 3 22 Bald Eagle 3 12 46 Northern Harrier 0 88 284 Sharp-shinned Hawk 97 1102 4016 Cooper's Hawk 0 3 14 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 2 7 Broad-winged Hawk 0 10 22232 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 25 86 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 1 American Kestrel 17 98 747 Merlin 1 11 34 Peregrine Falcon 4 17 43 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: 795 3559 33839 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 09:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 6 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Erika Van Kirk, 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: I suppose that we did not have enough temperature swings, or snow, to count this as four seasons in a day but the visuals certainly were there. We started an hour late today due to a turbulent patch of wet weather that passed through at the normal start time. It seemed that this little blip was fast moving and short lived as the sun emerged and warmed the earth, oops, it went back in. The skies alternated between bands of clouds of different composition, cumulus at times with a bright blue backdrop, or altostratus flooding the sky with a sea of gray dimming the ambient light level significantly. The southern winds were gusty, the base speed stayed in a five mph range from ten to fifteen. It was a challenging day for those attempting to travel by air. As the wind changed to a more westerly vector the flight seemed to drop off in the late afternoon hours. The barometer stayed steady at 29.88. Temperatures hung around seventy with little movement. The humidity finally dropped about twenty percentage points today and the visibility improved considerably. Raptor Observations: The day got off to a good start with the birds on the move in the first hour right behind the cold front induced weather disturbance. The skies were much clearer today allowing us to see further and the natural order of things for October was restored as we could finally see some turkey vultures in significant numbers. Not huge numbers, but we managed to put six hundred and seventy-two notches in our belt today. The sharp-shins were eager to move today but they probably traveled twice as much distance as what would show on a map as they were tossed about on an angry sea of air causing lots of elevation changes and changes of direction to compensate for the gusty conditions. Only one red-tailed hawk was counted today but this was not a buteo-friendly wind at our site. We did note three bald eagles passing overhead. The falcons had a fairly decent day. It was a tough day to ID birds as there was a lot of shape-shifting due to the wind conditions, sharpies looked like falcons and vice versa at times. We did manage to designate seventeen kestrels, only one merlin, and four peregrines that provided some entertainment at times engaging in aerial aggression. Non-raptor Observations: A thousand local cormorants put on a show late in the day with them coming close as they changed positions chasing fish. So many took off at once that the sound of the wingbeats was audible from our position. The gulls provided escort service seeking any fish that might not be immediately secured. We had another visit from a group of Bonaparte’s gulls numbering near forty. Blue jays were on the move again, many thousands passing our site. Only five monarchs were seen today. Predictions: Tomorrow has lower winds than today, staying in the five to eight mph range. Winds should be from the WSW. The barometer will be climbing but will stay just below thirty inches. We should have clouds to help us spot birds if they are on the move. With their lower strength the winds may not be as assertive and affect the flight to our detriment. Hopefully, we can build our turkey vulture count tomorrow after a decent start today. The day has more potential that the last week has shown, but the last week has been very bad so take that with a grain of salt. ======================================================================== 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