Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 09, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 19 1430 5548 Osprey 0 2 21 Bald Eagle 0 6 40 Northern Harrier 1 87 283 Sharp-shinned Hawk 39 924 3838 Cooper's Hawk 2 3 14 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 2 7 Broad-winged Hawk 1 10 22232 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 21 82 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 1 American Kestrel 3 74 723 Merlin 2 7 30 Peregrine Falcon 0 11 37 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 68 2577 32857 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 7 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, 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: It’s slow days like these that hasten the descent into madness that is an occupational hazard of hawk watching. Staring at the sky for ninety days straight for seven hours a day is bound to have some deleterious side effects; especially when there is little reward for your effort. Being a superstitious lot by nature, it isn’t long before frequent furtive side eye glances are cast, looking for the person that may have killed an albatross and is responsible for our cursed condition. Water, water everywhere and not a bird in sight. Internal dialogues laced with vitriol, never to be spoken aloud, are soon taking place as paranoia seeps into your psyche. But…fortunately, it turns out that a low-pressure trough coupled with a southern wind was responsible for our dearth of birds today and all that angst was in vain. We had what appeared to be a semi-promising day if you went by the appearance. Mostly blue skies, although Canada was veiled by light fog for most of the day. The fog made a brilliant floodlight of the sun in the first hour and made looking in that direction almost impossible. High cirrus clouds appeared first as a sign that rain was approaching in the next twenty-four hours. They were replaced by a line of large healthy-looking cumulus clouds that approached but seemed to stall and dissipate right in front of us. This was another sign that something odd was happening. Winds picked up speed during the day to about seven mph but we noticed a few whitecaps on the lake so the increased fetch there may have allowed higher speeds. The barometer was rock steady at thirty inches until the final couple of hours when it fell and the already slow flight of birds stopped completely. Raptor Observations: There may have been more movement than we could see today but a light haze prevented the deep vision that is necessary to see birds to the north where the winds would have pushed them. We had hoped for better results as turkey vultures should be moving. We only counted nineteen when we should have several hundred, if not more. Only one northern harrier was spotted today, another species that we might have expected to see more of. Two Cooper’s hawks were counted. Buteos were almost non-existent with one red-tailed hawk and one broad-wing to show for our efforts. Our first bird of the day, and the only bird of the first hour, was a merlin that flew fairly close, another was counted later in the day. Only three American kestrels whipped through today. The local eagle flew close by and one of the local ospreys extracted a fish from the lake. Non-raptor Observations: The assembled mass of cormorants was back in force again; flying just over the water in long lines. Blue jays were present in good numbers but most were distant and difficult to see. Monarchs continue to fly but in mid-teen numbers. The gulls were barely visible to the north as they formed a gull kettle hawking insects. The ducks were nervous today as the gunfire indicated the start of a new phase of the hunting season. “The sound of gunfire off in the distance, I’m getting used to it now.” At times, that distance is not very distant as hunting is allowed in the Metropark. Predictions: There may be morning thunderstorms at the watch. Given the hit and miss predictions lately, and this is a difficult region to predict accurately with the lakes affecting things, it may or may not happen. It will occur with a lot of cloud cover and a falling barometer which should take an even steeper dip around midday. The barometer should end up about two tenths lower than today. Winds will be robust from the SE direction, growing up to nearly fifteen mph during the day. Not good. The strong southerly winds should raise the temperature up well into the seventies. With rain and a strong adverse wind, it’s difficult to find anything to look forward to. ======================================================================== 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 Count data submitted via Dunkadoo - Project info at: https://dunkadoo.org/explore/detroit-river-international-wildlife-refuge/detroit-river-hawk-watch-fall-2021