Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 26, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 202 375 375 Osprey 1 17 17 Bald Eagle 1 26 26 Northern Harrier 12 118 118 Sharp-shinned Hawk 310 1847 1847 Cooper's Hawk 0 5 5 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 601 19117 19117 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 37 37 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 35 466 466 Merlin 4 16 16 Peregrine Falcon 1 13 13 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 1 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 1168 22038 22038 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:30:00 Total observation time: 7.5 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, Mark Hainen, Patrick Mulawa 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: Another day of quickly changing skies with various formations and differing amounts of cloud cover, changing between nearly cloudless to nearly full gray cloud cover. The winds kept the wind turbines chasing them all day, switching from western variants to south and back again while rising and falling erratically. The temperature had a twenty degree climb during the day requiring some wardrobe shedding as the day progressed. Our spot is mostly sheltered from southern winds, but it was obvious from the way the sharpies were buffeted about that they were facing some resistance as they made their way past. Birds are like sailboats in that they adjust their “sails” to adapt to the conditions at hand. This affects their flight patterns and the way that we perceive them. That requires some adjustments on our part too. The barometer was steady for most of the day, but as predicted, fell during the last couple of hours. Raptor Observations: It was a full day of looking hard for birds. Winds kept them below the trees at first so they would pop up quickly without much advance notice. The southern element of the wind pushed the birds like the broad-wings off to the north and they were the most difficult to see. We managed to pick out six hundred and eleven flying specks of pepper in the very hazy sky to the north. The falcons had a fairly decent day with thirty-five kestrels, four merlins, and one peregrine showing their pointed wing tips to us. We counted one bald eagle and one osprey. Twelve northern harriers were seen today. One red-tailed hawk was noted. The turkey vultures are not yet fully committed to migration but the early adopters are starting to drift by in small groups. We notched one hundred and eighty-two today. Non-raptor Observations: Today was another day in which the gulls created a three-dimensional matrix as they chased insects unseen by us earthbound observers. We suspect dragonflies were on the menu but it may have been a Golden Corral smorgasbord up there. At times the task at hand was made much more difficult by the sheer number of these birds. A case of where we couldn’t see the birds for the birds. Otherwise, the non-raptor front was pretty quiet. A few hummingbirds flew by and the monarchs were there in moderate numbers. I suspect the winds may have kept a lot of them to the north as well. The Caspian terns made a brief noisy appearance. Blue jays are starting to move in increasing numbers as we had over 2K today. Predictions: Tomorrow is another “two strikes” day. Increasing SW winds up into the low teens should push birds to the north. The barometer will continue the drop it started this afternoon. This dip will set up, rebounding on Tuesday, four days of rising barometric pressures with NE winds. (Be still my beating heart.) I wish that we had this weather about ten days ago, but if there are any broadwings that have been waiting for a reason to leave this may set them free. The winds appear to be of moderate strength which is good for our site, although if they are more than predicted, our colleagues in Ontario will benefit. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Kevin Georg (kevin.l.georg@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