Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 05, 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 1 1 3 Turkey Vulture 624 1144 1815 Osprey 0 1 46 Bald Eagle 0 19 162 Northern Harrier 70 106 500 Sharp-shinned Hawk 115 227 2794 Cooper's Hawk 6 17 108 American Goshawk 0 0 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 2 Broad-winged Hawk 2 2 18490 Red-tailed Hawk 9 25 204 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 88 146 1815 Merlin 5 9 62 Peregrine Falcon 1 17 43 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 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1 Total: 921 1714 26046 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 9 hours Official Counter: Dave Brown Observers: Chris Burris, Ken Wootton, Kitty Bradshaw, Mac McAlpine, Michele Carnerie, Ronnie Goodhand, Steve Birch, Su Ross-Redmond Visitors: A few visitors to the site today hoping they had surmised correctly that it would be a decent flight... and though it was a bit slow overall they definitely got to see some nice up close birds... especially the N Harriers! Thanks to Steve, Chris, Mac, Su, Ken, Ronnie, Kitty and Kathy for helping with spotting the birds today while I was recording everything. Weather: Today appeared to be near perfect for hawk migration with a nice mix of sun and cloud and NW winds. We did have a bit of a delay early on because the winds were actually straight W for a while but eventually they shifted to NW and stayed there the remainder of the day. Temps ranged from 9C to 15C while pressure remained fairly steady. Raptor Observations: Well... sometimes despite what appears to be great hawk migration weather the buteos at least either didn't think so or they just weren't pushed down from the northern parts of the province yet. We had a total of 921 birds today with the bulk of them TVs (624)... but we had just a small handful of buteos... Redtails (9) and Broadwings (2)! We definitely expected a much higher number of buteos at this point but the birds had other ideas. On the positive side the day was great for N Harriers (70) including several adult looking males ("gray ghosts") crossing through. There were also OK numbers of Sharpies (115) and Kestrels (88). Small numbers of other raptors included just a single Peregrine right out over the water headed quickly westward earlier in the day. And our (we believe) same Black Vulture crossed from E to W again today with another good sized flight of TVs. Non-raptor Observations: Well the non-raptors were definitely providing some more interesting species to look at today... and in fact it was one of the better mornings I've had for numbers and variety of species (especially warblers!) right in and around the hawk watch viewing platform. You can see the associated eBird checklist at the following link (Thanks to Chris B for putting together this list today): https://ebird.org/checklist/S399592917 A couple of the highlights included getting photos of: 1) a cooperative Prairie Warbler that was foraging inside of 3m and just above eye level at the N end of the viewing area. 2) a 2nd bird was a real surprise... a Connecticut Warbler which was skulking very low in the same shrub where it sat for a good 30 seconds and I managed some nice shots of it as well. (note I didn't post this one to Discord right away because I wanted to get a good look at it on my computer first). I'm not sure if either of these birds will be there Tuesday morning... I know a few other birders were scouring the area and along the roadway to try and re-find it right after this sighting but with no luck. Predictions: The forecast is for winds that will be NE early but swinging quickly to SE (bad) and then late in the day to SW which would've been better. I suspect there won't be much of a flight tomorrow... but hunting down some interesting passerines might just make it worth a visit down to the site. ======================================================================== 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