Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 17, 2026 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 1 3 5 Turkey Vulture 9745 15206 15877 Osprey 0 2 47 Bald Eagle 45 84 227 Northern Harrier 24 202 596 Sharp-shinned Hawk 582 1236 3803 Cooper's Hawk 42 95 186 American Goshawk 0 0 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 53 67 69 Broad-winged Hawk 1 8 18496 Red-tailed Hawk 520 644 823 Rough-legged Hawk 4 4 4 Golden Eagle 1 3 3 American Kestrel 33 391 2060 Merlin 6 35 88 Peregrine Falcon 1 108 134 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: 11058 18088 42420 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 9 hours Official Counter: Tom Bolohan Observers: Brett Fried, Cary Graham, Chris Burris, Dave Brown, Jeff Skevington, Ken Wootton, Michele Carnerie, Richard Skevington Visitors: A ton of visitors today from many different locations and too many to list here. A BIG thanks to all the visitors that helped spot the birds today... Dave V, Dave B, Cary, Mac, Jeff, Richard, Michel, Andy, William, Brett, Wayne, Larry and neat the end of the count Su. And to the folks who counted ... Tom B, Chris and Ken as the clickers were going full tilt today! Weather: Clear blue skies for the day with moderate N winds eventually dropping to light and swinging slightly to the NNW towards the end of the count period. Temps were quite cold to start the morning at 1C (feeling like -1C) with the wind and then got to a high of just 10C. The pressure was on the rise today as a bug high approached the region. There was obviously some pretty good thermal updrafts as the morning wore on and eventually the birds were getting out of naked eye range requiring binos to find. Raptor Observations: It was quite the spectacle today with 1000's of TVs crossing the sky in a never ending stream from the third hour in to the end of the day. The total today was 11,058 birds with the bulk being TVs (9,745). However, if someone had told me we would get this many birds flying through and only get a SINGLE Golden Eagle I would've never have believed it... but that's what happened with a single GOEA crossing low to our N early in the morning. It proved difficult to find the smaller raptors in the pure blue at the height they were flying but we still managed a really good number of Redtails (520) and a smaller number of Red-shoulders (53). We also got our first Roughlegs (4) for the season including a couple of nice dark morph birds. We even got a single very late Broadwing and a Peregrine which meant we only missed getting Osprey and Am Goshawk for the typically 15 species for the day. The other surprise was ANOTHER Black Vulture... and this time it appeared to be a juvenile bird with NO missing feathers so definitely a 3rd BLVU for the season at this point. Non-raptor Observations: Lots of passerines were on the move today with plenty in the air to try and ID... and many small birds like warblers, vireos, all woodpecker species except RHWO and others. For a complete list look at the eBird checklist at the following link: https://ebird.org/checklist/S403238216 Predictions: If the winds get to a steady SW direction up the cliff then there might be some birds using the updraft to zip along the lakeshore. If it gets stuck straight W then I suspect the flight will be slowed to a trickle. ======================================================================== 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