Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 18, 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 0 0 0 Osprey 1 27 27 Bald Eagle 1 58 58 Northern Harrier 37 89 89 Sharp-shinned Hawk 418 997 997 Cooper's Hawk 9 25 25 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 6092 15424 15424 Red-tailed Hawk 32 37 37 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 164 475 475 Merlin 5 30 30 Peregrine Falcon 1 7 7 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: 6760 17169 17169 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 06:00:00 Observation end time: 14:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Tom Bolohan Observers: Dave Brown, Dave Verkley, Harold V., Mac McAlpine, Ronnie Goodhand, Steve Birch, Su Ross-Redmond Visitors: A bunch of visitors today with too many to try and name them all.. but a huge thanks to them for helping spot birds in the pure blue skies and to our usual gang of counters Tom B (who took over counter duties for me today), Mac, Su, Steve B, Ronnie, Cary, Dave V and Harold. Weather: As expected it was a near perfect flight day for migrating raptors and the number of birds passing the hawk watch today proved it. Temps started at 12C and got to a high of 22C. There was zero cloud cover in the morning with some nice cumulous building in as we approached the afternoon. Winds were moderate from the NE with some backing at ground level swinging a bit to the ENE. Raptor Observations: A really good flight today with a total of 6,760 raptors tallied today the bulk of which were obviously Broadwings (6,092). (Btw... a big congrats to the folks at the Holiday Beach and Detroit River Hawk Watches today with counts exceeding 60,000 and 30,000 respectively!). We knew the day was going to be good when we had Broadwings already zipping past before 7:00 EST ("Bird time") and then our first kettles right as we got into the 2nd hour. We had a nice flow of both Sharpies and Kestrels right away as well. Once the kettles started forming we often had multiple kettles in the sky in different directions at the same time right from the lakeshore to a km inland. What was nice about the first 3 hours was that there were so many updrafts occurring in the area that the birds were only kettling up for maybe 30 seconds before streaming off westward and then kettling up again. This meant we got some really nice views of low kettles rather than looking for dots of "pepper" way up in the blue. Unfortunately, we had about an hour or more where the clouds hadn't showed up yet but the birds were going higher and higher and virtually out of sight... especially noticeable in the Sharpies as their numbers dropped off because they had disappeared into the stratosphere! A lone Peregrine came through right above the cliff edge and wasn't wasting any time and both a Merlin and a Sharpie buzzed the viewing area within feet of us! All in all a very enjoyable hawk watching day today. Non-raptor Observations: I'll hopefully be getting an eBird checklist submitted and will update a link here... or just checkout the Hawk Cliff hotspot. There were definitely lots of warblers and other passerines around the viewing area and up and down the roadway but they were staying well hidden likely because of all the predators cruising through. Predictions: Saturday's forecast is showing moderate E winds for the day around Hawk Cliff and areas to the E and NE of the site. This provides a tail wind for the birds on the move. Unfortunately, with the drop in barometric pressure expected going into the weekend, the forecasted updraft velocities are much lower as is the Buoyancy / Shear ratio (much more shear in the region will likely rip apart any updrafts that try and form). Will birds be moving tomorrow? Absolutely! Will they be pushed down to the Lake Erie shoreline? Hard to say but without a northerly component in to the winds this won't likely happen. ======================================================================== 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