Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 20, 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 4205 47387 49108 Osprey 0 4 11 Bald Eagle 2 26 93 Northern Harrier 2 167 338 Sharp-shinned Hawk 40 1319 3273 Cooper's Hawk 4 24 31 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 53 91 93 Broad-winged Hawk 0 31 75179 Swainson's Hawk 0 1 2 Red-tailed Hawk 187 544 662 Rough-legged Hawk 1 1 1 Golden Eagle 6 7 7 American Kestrel 9 212 740 Merlin 1 19 40 Peregrine Falcon 0 22 34 Unknown Accipitrine 0 1 6 Unknown Buteo 5 8 26 Unknown Falcon 0 1 3 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 5 20 Total: 4515 49870 129667 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Gracie Sangmeister Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, Erika Van Kirk, Rebekah Graham, Rosemary Brady Visitors: We welcome visitors to our site at the Lake Erie Metropark Boat Launch. We are always willing to discuss the events of the day. Let us share our enthusiasm with you. There will be busy days, that may require our full attention, but those are not that frequent, and they provide great thrills for all. We can predict good days to some degree, but the exact hour is up to the birds, so be prepared to put in some time for the best results. Pack a lunch😊 Weather: A northeast wind is the breakfast of champions at our site. We didn�t break any records today, but had a fulfilling day nonetheless. The wind did not stay in the northeast, it flatlined around noon and resumed from south-southeast, one of a few different directions today that had the wind turbines spinning on the pedestals. It crested at seven mph from north-northeast in the late afternoon. A rather confusing day for the raptors who had to recalculate often as the heavily caffeinated wind gods fought for supremacy. The barometer was falling as it begins a slow decline for a couple of days. This is a very big high-pressure system however, and pressures will stay above thirty inches for the foreseeable future. The predicted clouds never did arrive, although some convection clouds formed over the water�s edge. The temperature was sixty-eight which made for another pleasant fall day. Raptor Observations: We had to work to dig out the raptors most of the day, wind shifts kept the birds a little further away than we would prefer for the most part. Four thousand, two hundred and five turkey vultures kept the hand clickers going until an hour after normal closing time. The buteos had caught migration fever today with one hundred and eighty-seven red-tailed hawks and fifty-three red-shouldered hawks. The sharp-shins, bless their little hearts, are still plugging away, finishing just off the podium today with forty passing through. Nine kestrels raced by in typical falcon fashion. Four Cooper�s hawks were counted. Two bald eagles and two harriers were noted. One merlin was looking for something to take a run at. I�m saving the best for last of course, six golden eagles passed through today, two of them at the same time we saw our first rough-legged hawk, a light morph. Film at eleven on our Facebook site. (We had a glitch today and our hourly totals show zero for one hour, that is incorrect, but the daily total is correct.) Non-raptor Observations: The pelicans were there today in small numbers. Twenty Bonaparte�s gulls, named after an ornithologist nephew to the Bonaparte that we have all heard of, were in the slip briefly today. A black duck flew by in the company of two mallards. Yesterday, we had a flight of seven sandhill cranes fly behind us but the scribe forgot to mention them. I shall speak to him. Three Hudsonian godwits were seen in the park today. Today was the first day that the crows outnumbered the blue jays. The tally was eight hundred and four to three hundred and sixty-four. To every thing there is a season. Monarch season is nearly over but they keep showing up in tiny numbers, two were seen today. Predictions: Another Ground hog day tomorrow, nothing changes but the winds and those are always TBD. The barometer will be falling two tenths tomorrow but stay above thirty inches by two tenths, a sign of how large this high has been. The winds will be doing the hokey-pokey again, different directions during different hours, but forecast to be below five mph. The winds at that speed are always variable and don�t provide much lift to the birds. Hopefully, they will spike a little higher than predicted. The temperature will climb to sixty-six and we will be working under the blue dome again. Hopefully, the birds will keep up the pace tomorrow, although our breakfast of champions may not be served.. ======================================================================== 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