Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 17, 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 2 26 26 Bald Eagle 0 57 57 Northern Harrier 2 52 52 Sharp-shinned Hawk 15 579 579 Cooper's Hawk 1 16 16 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 0 9332 9332 Red-tailed Hawk 0 5 5 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 9 311 311 Merlin 0 25 25 Peregrine Falcon 0 6 6 Unknown Accipitrine 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 29 10409 10409 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 11:00:00 Total observation time: 3 hours Official Counter: Su Ross-Redmond Observers: Visitors: None today. A big thanks to Su for getting a bit of a count done today with such crappy weather. Weather: As expected a very unsettled start to the day in the Hawk Cliff area with some rain drops and light NE winds and starting at 18C. Wind died out pretty much and rain shut down the count by late morning. Temp got to a high of 21C. Raptor Observations: No birds in the first 2 hours. Finally a few birds in the third hour with 29 total... including Osprey (2), N Harriers (2), Sharpies (15), Cooper's Hawk (1) and Am Kestrels (9). Non-raptor Observations: Su commented that there were KETTLES of 100's and 100's of Monarchs passing by during the morning especially from mid-morning on before completely stopping with the rain... and said she'd never seen anything like it! Predictions: Friday looks to be a near perfect raptor flight day weather wise with a mix of sun and clouds and moderate NE and N winds. The Thermal Updraft Velocity (TUV) forecast predicts how fast the air rises in thermal air columns. For tomorrow the TUV is forecast to be as high as 500 ft/min. The Buoyancy Shear Ratio forecasts how buoyant the air is to the amount of wind shear. Tomorrow the B/S ratio is forecast to be 9 which is a very high meaning great buoyancy in the air and very little wind shear. In short... the migrating raptors will be getting some great lift on Friday if these forecasts are accurate. There's also a good chance for cumulous clouds forming BUT the base of these clouds is forecast to be at least 3000 ft in altitude! I have a feeling there's going to be a good flight BUT it's going to be hard to spot the birds. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Dave Brown (ez.raptor1210@gmail.com) Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch information may be found at: http://www.ezlink.ca/~thebrowns/HawkCliff/index.htm More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=392