Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 19, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 7 4075 59878 Osprey 0 2 26 Bald Eagle 0 11 78 Northern Harrier 1 19 372 Sharp-shinned Hawk 5 143 6547 Cooper's Hawk 1 11 50 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 16 160 478 Broad-winged Hawk 0 0 21973 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 168 1835 3450 Rough-legged Hawk 0 3 4 Golden Eagle 0 43 58 American Kestrel 0 0 1068 Merlin 1 16 65 Peregrine Falcon 3 12 68 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: 202 6330 94116 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 09:00:00 Observation end time: 17:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, 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: Today almost followed the script. The sun was out with only occasional wisps of icy cirrus to spoil the blue-out. The barometer climbed to a healthy high in the 30.4 inHg range. However, those pesky winds were a little more energetic than predicted and seemed to be born under a wandering star as they traveled a quarter of the way around the compass to end up coming from the south. Temperatures climbed up to the low forties; nice to see after we had to brush snow and graupel off the tables at the start of the watch. Raptor Observations: The red-tails were on the move today but tracking them was made more difficult by the bright blue sky and the varying flight lines caused by the shifting winds. Some went high, some went low, some went to the north, some went further to the north. We ended up with one hundred and sixty-eight tails of red soaring by. Red-shoulders were their traveling companions but they were in the minority with sixteen being counted. Turkey vultures are still cleaning out the cupboard with seven members wobbling by today. Five sharpies and one Cooper’s represented the accipiters. One northern harrier made the grade. One merlin and three peregrines were observed today. Non-raptor Observations: The only birds that really “popped” in the sky today were the white tundra swans who stood out against the bright blue background. Their migration is well underway now as we saw several flights overhead today. A small flight of golden-eyes flew by this morning, not a duck we see frequently at the site. Many distant ducks are still present on the lake, put up today at one time by the former M/V Columbia Star, a ship with which I have some acquaintance. The gulls had some spectacular kettles today with hundreds swirling around like a white dust devil. I don’t know where all the gulls came from since we don’t seem to have that many near us. Predictions: Tomorrow will be a prelude to another rainy storm system headed our way on Sunday. It will be cloudy and the barometer will be headed south. Winds will be stronger than we would like from a direction we don’t like, the south. They should be around ten mph and just over for most of the day. The temperatures will only reach forty again as the southern winds will not bring a lot of warm air to us. Not a lot to like here as the winds will shove most of the birds to the north beyond our vision. It will be a dark day and hard to ID birds at distance. We knew the job was dangerous when we took it though. ======================================================================== 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