Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 13, 2025 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 41 652 90600 Osprey 0 0 29 Bald Eagle 0 17 166 Northern Harrier 0 18 497 Sharp-shinned Hawk 6 44 3988 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 65 American Goshawk 0 0 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 5 31 200 Broad-winged Hawk 0 1 51922 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1 Red-tailed Hawk 27 231 1273 Rough-legged Hawk 1 1 4 Golden Eagle 2 11 46 American Kestrel 0 0 964 Merlin 0 2 52 Peregrine Falcon 0 2 47 Unknown Accipitrine 0 0 1 Unknown Buteo 0 0 3 Unknown Falcon 0 0 3 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 1 10 Total: 82 1011 149872 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 09:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Jo Patterson Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, Johannes Postma Visitors: We welcome visitors to our site as we are eager to share the joys of hawk watching with one and all. Although there may be times in which we are all very busy and need alone-time to concentrate, those are the times that are most enjoyable for visitors as the skies are filled with migrating raptors. Weather: Another windy arrow from November’s bottomless quiver of windy days. Although the temperature was tipped to be above fifty degrees today, it reached fifty-two, the relentless wind kept it feeling much cooler. We started with winds in the six-mph zone, it rose quickly to a peak of seventeen mph. The western wind is one that we can feel the brunt of in our location, so there was no hiding from it. The sun had an opportunity to help today, as we saw a few gauzy airplane-contrail cirrus clouds in the morning, but the temperature aloft must have changed, and at the end of the watch, the sky above us bore no anomalies in its solid sheet of blue. The barometer was rising slightly during the day, another roller-coaster dip is coming though. Raptor Observations: Today we had a little more success on a western wind than yesterday’s evil southwestern wind. Once again, it seemed that when the wind picked up to its highest speed in the late afternoon hours, the birds gave up and went elsewhere. Turkey vultures are well off their normal October pace, but continue to climb to the top step of the podium. They had forty-one reps today, most in two groups, although a few came as couples. The red-tails, who have envious eyes on that top step and will, winds willing, be able to attain it soon, gave it a shot today with twenty-seven members present and accounted for. “One of these days Alice.” The sharp-shins, flying differently today in the high winds, came through with six brave souls. Red-shouldered hawks were right behind with five crescent bearing birds. Our holy grail birds today were two golden eagles and one light-morph rough-legged hawk. Bald eagles were plentiful today, but none were deemed to be migrating. Non-raptor Observations: With the high winds blowing, the slip that we sit at seemed awfully quiet at times. It is duck hunting season, so our usual mallard entourage may be laying low. The Bonaparte’s gulls are more frequent visitors, but not there for very long. Tree swallows make an occasional appearance. Our local kingfisher announced its presence today. The scaup out on Lake Erie continue to put on impressive displays with astonishing numbers taking to the air from time to time. The water levels were rising today with the change in wind direction allowing a return trip from Buffalo. There are still observations of small flights of cormorants migrating south. The crows showed up again today with one thousand and eighteen counted. Predictions: Good thing: the winds will be less robust tomorrow staying in the single digits. Bad thing: they will be blowing from the south. We will see which of those things wins out at the watch tomorrow. The barometer should begin a decline, which will accelerate on Saturday to a projected 29.43 inches. That is also a bad thing. More clouds will be present tomorrow. The temperature should reach fifty-four degrees. A big warm up is coming on Saturday, but the winds will be strong from the southwest again. November, continues to be stingy with bountiful winds, but we knew the job was dangerous when we took it. ======================================================================== 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