Holiday Beach Hawk Watch Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 12, 2024 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 4 155 177 Osprey 0 10 10 Bald Eagle 1 51 54 Northern Harrier 20 118 137 Sharp-shinned Hawk 234 687 689 Cooper's Hawk 14 27 28 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 55 393 405 Red-tailed Hawk 2 222 262 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 14 317 325 Merlin 4 28 28 Peregrine Falcon 2 13 13 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Mississippi Kite 0 1 1 Total: 350 2022 2129 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 9 hours Official Counter: Kiah Jasper Observers: Bob Hall-Brooks, Chad Cornish, Hugh Kent, Juliette Herdman, Liz Kent, Mike Jaber, Noel Herdman Visitors: Thanks to Bob, Chad, Hugh, Liz, Juliette, Noel and Mike for helping me spot birds today. Rob from Windsor stopped in for a bit, and Donna, Lorne, Doreen, Rob, Moira and Maria visited from their camping trip at Wheatley. Weather: There was a haze in the air when I first arrived at 08:00, but that quickly burned off and by 09:00 visibility was back to 20km. Totally clear skies meant we were baking up on the tower, especially when the temperature maxed out at 27 degrees in the afternoon. The wind was in our favour during the morning, coming lightly from the Northeast. Around 12:00 the wind began to shift East though, where it remained for the rest of the day. Raptor Observations: The morning was quite active for Sharp-shinned Hawks, with over 200 recorded passing by the tower. A lot of the flight today was farther inland, which made spotting birds more challenging. Several small kettles of Broad-winged Hawk, Northern Harrier and Cooper's Hawk passed right over the tower, a nice taste of what is to come later in the season. 14 Cooper's Hawks were seen today, a rather high number fot the date. Non-raptor Observations: 10 warbler species were seen near the base of the tower in the morning, mainly Yellow-rumped, Nashville and Blackpoll. 256 American Goldfinch were recorded flying over, as well as 6 Bobolink and 2 Indigo Buntings. Swallow numbers have dwindled since last week, but several hundred were still seen. 74 species were recorded from the tower today, for the full list see this checklist - https://ebird.org/checklist/S194883191 Predictions: Tomorrow will be another hot and sunny day, with wind from the East. I expect we will still get a decent flight, though likely no big Broad-winged Hawk numbers unless things change drastically. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Kiah Jasper (kiahbirder@gmail.com) Holiday Beach Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/ More site information at hawkcount.org: https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=100