Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 01, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 326 326 4444 Osprey 1 1 20 Bald Eagle 0 0 34 Northern Harrier 40 40 236 Sharp-shinned Hawk 322 322 3236 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 11 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 5 Broad-winged Hawk 2 2 22224 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 1 62 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 1 American Kestrel 51 51 700 Merlin 0 0 23 Peregrine Falcon 0 0 26 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: 743 743 31023 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Mark Hainen, Patrick Mulawa, 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: “It was the best of times, it was the worse of times-------we had everything before us, we had nothing before us” Mr. Dickens seemed to describe our day very well as we started the day fairly well but ended with literally nothing before us. It was a day very similar to the last two except that the wind manifested new muscle that eliminated the big number birds, broad-wings and turkey vultures, from our sight. The direction was actually NE at the very start of the watch but soon shifted to a southern direction and grew in strength to eight mph, effectively sealing our fate. It doesn’t take much of a riptide to move birds that ride the air currents on large wings. The temperatures topped out at just over seventy but, while in the shade of the old maple tree and feeling the wind off the lake, it felt much cooler. The barometer did begin its descent as the low-pressure system bearing rain approaches, probably arriving tomorrow night. Raptor Observations: Today was actually a pretty busy day during the eleven a.m. to one p.m. time period in which we had over one hundred sharpies each hour. We ended with a respectable total of three hundred and twenty-two. This was the peak of our bell curve though and it tapered off significantly after that. Harriers continue to show in good numbers as we had forty today. That number topped the season’s best per/day count by three. The turkey vultures are like cottonwood tree snow which allows the wind to take it where it will. As a result, it was difficult to count the three hundred and sixty-three that we did. Driven north into a very hazy sky that swallowed them whole at times, it was nearly impossible to see them, even though we suspect that there was a much larger number out there. The same fate befell the broad-wings with only two being counted. These birds are even smaller and much less visible than the large black vultures so it was a fool’s errand to try and find them. We did count one osprey today, although the local one seems to be unconcerned with moving on. Only one red-tailed hawk was tallied as this is also a bird that rides the wind. The kestrels had a good day, sometimes in strings of five or six birds. We totaled fifty-one on the day. Non-raptor Observations: The monarchs seemed to pick up the pace today with sixty-eight counted. Blue jays were in the 5K+ range. Our Caspian and Forster’s terns were present and active. Ducks have taken to the sky today and we saw a lot of mallards practicing their flight formations. The gulls seemed to have tired of hawking insects and were less of a nuisance today. A young pied-bill grebe paid us a visit. The number of blackbirds flying by in migrating groups seems to be on the rise. Predictions: Tomorrow does not look to be an ideal day. A falling barometer with increasing cloud cover and winds increasing from the SW would not, if I had my druthers, be my first choice. We must play the hand we are dealt however, and that we will do. Hopefully, we will see continued sharpie movement along with kestrels and harriers. Rain is very likely to arrive after the end of the watch in the early evening hours and continue through Sunday. The rest of the week looks cloudier, slightly cooler, and potentially more wet than this week has been. Even though the barometer will rise, the cloud cover will persist with a chance of rain every day, albeit only in the twenty per cent range. ======================================================================== 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