Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Nov 10, 2025 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 212 558 90506 Osprey 0 0 29 Bald Eagle 3 15 164 Northern Harrier 3 18 497 Sharp-shinned Hawk 8 37 3981 Cooper's Hawk 0 0 65 American Goshawk 0 0 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 4 25 194 Broad-winged Hawk 1 1 51922 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1 Red-tailed Hawk 72 193 1235 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 3 Golden Eagle 0 6 41 American Kestrel 0 0 964 Merlin 0 2 52 Peregrine Falcon 1 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: 304 858 149719 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 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, Jerry Jourdan, 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: Were it not for Gordon Lightfoot’s truly haunting ballad about the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald, today might be just a footnote in Great Lakes maritime history. It is the fiftieth anniversary of that event that took twenty-nine lives on a stormy Lake Superior night in 1975. Although the song is not factually accurate in certain details, it captured the essence of sailing in one inspired timeless line, “Does anyone know where the love of God goes, when the waves turn the minutes to hours.” RIP shipmates. Our day was not entirely without challenges from the weather. The first day of subfreezing temperatures combined with a northerly wind required some wardrobe adjustments. The temperature peaked at thirty-degrees, but the windchill real-feel temperature was in the high teens. Winds rose to fifteen mph, with some partial lulls to catch its breath again, before increasing once more. It seemed to back around to a more westerly direction in the final hour, leaving us with a nearly empty sky. The sky was not empty of clouds today as cumulus clouds of considerable mass assembled in the sky above us, nearly blocking the sun, which had warmed us slightly while it was visible. Towards the end of the day, they lost their sense of urgency and drifted apart, allowing a higher percentage of cerulean sky to be seen. Raptor Observations: A cold day had visions of golden eagles and rough-legs dancing in our head, but it was not to be. It was a good wind for birds to travel on, as the barometer was rising and it came from a direction they like, unfortunately, it was a few degrees off, for our sites best results. Two hundred and twelve turkey vultures wandered through, coming on different routes, and in smallish numbers. We knew that red-tails should be moving today and seventy-two were counted. Sharp-shins took the bronze with eight birds. Only four red-shoulders were noted, a little light on the normal ratio of tails to shoulders that we see. Three bald eagles, and the same number of harriers were counted. One peregrine falcon was noted. The surprise bird of the day was a very late to the party broad-winged hawk. Surprise, surprise, as Gomer used to say. Non-raptor Observations: Today was Bonaparte’s day in the slip as about sixty of them spent the day either fishing, or staying out of the wind, riding the waves. We saw our first flight of tundra swans today, high aloft, as usual. A pair of bufflehead ducks flew in for a visit. We can occasionally see huge flights of scaup taking to the air out on the lake. We saw a couple of flights of sandhill cranes today. One was only a pair of birds but the other was the best part of fifteen. A common loon was seen in flight, probably headed up the river to float down again. Thirteen hundred and seventy-five crows rowed through. Predictions: A similar wind tomorrow and a lot more cloud, as another one-day low pressure event occurs. The barometer will fall about three tenths of an inch. Winds should start at twelve mph and rise to sixteen, mostly west, but developing a southwest flavor as the day wears on. Not a particularly favorable forecast for our site and I would not expect large numbers of birds, especially when the wind turns southwest at sixteen mph. ======================================================================== 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