Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 25, 2021 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 76 173 173 Osprey 0 16 16 Bald Eagle 1 25 25 Northern Harrier 3 106 106 Sharp-shinned Hawk 81 1537 1537 Cooper's Hawk 0 5 5 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 1416 18516 18516 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 1 36 36 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 4 431 431 Merlin 2 12 12 Peregrine Falcon 0 12 12 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 1 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 1584 20870 20870 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 11:30:00 Observation end time: 15:30:00 Total observation time: 4 hours Official Counter: Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood 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: They say if you don’t like the weather in Michigan just wait a few minutes, or cross the street. We had a wide range of weather looks today as a morning cold front passed through triggering moderate rainfall and a drop in temperature. We delayed the start of the watch until the rain stopped. Afternoon skies were constantly changing with bright puffy cumulus clouds at first but as the afternoon progressed dark clouds enveloped us and darkened the sky. We waited a few minutes and voila, cracks of blue appeared as the specter of threatening weather disappeared. The barometer actually rose a little during the show. Winds were variable but had enough north in them to perhaps encourage some movement. The birds often fly on the backside of these weather events when the rain clears and today was no exception. Raptor Observations: Although we were not overwhelmed with raptors today, we had a respectable turnout for half a day’s work. The turkey vultures are starting to move with small aggregations starting to form. We counted seventy-six today. One bald eagle of the adult persuasion was counted. Three northern harriers were seen up very high today. One red-tailed hawk was noted. Two merlins were counted and the kestrels doubled them up with four participants. The sharpies held up their end of the deal with eighty-one specimens counted. Although it often is not possible to tell the age of these small birds due to distance or visibility issues, we are starting to see a few more adults on the move. We had one little period in which we had some good movement of large kettles of broad-wings and the rest of the watch they came in small numbers. We tallied fourteen hundred and sixteen on the day. Non-raptor Observations: Today was extraordinary for the number of gulls that spread themselves all over the sky up in the attic where the broadwings fly. We call it avian flak and today was one of the worst we have seen. At that distance aloft it’s necessary to sort through all of them since they can resemble raptors, especially the darker juvenile birds. The other, more pleasant, surprise was during a presentation by the park employees about the hawk watch and its purpose. Don located a squadron of American white pelicans up doing their wheeling maneuvers high in the sky. We also had some raptors fly by, allowing us to point them out to our visitors. That isn’t always the case as the usual phrase is “You should have been here five minutes ago.” Predictions: Tomorrow looks to be a fairly pleasant day with partly cloudy skies and temps climbing to the low seventies from the fifties in the morning hours. Winds will be WSW and increasing in strength to the low teens. The barometer will be a shade under thirty inches but start to fall a little in the afternoon hours. This should bottom out on Monday and start climbing on Tuesday. Tuesday also has NE winds so that may be a good day. Tomorrow will probably present some resistance with the high winds and the direction it comes from. Hopefully the sharpies won’t mind. Today a lot of the birds were high where perhaps the going was a little easier, tomorrow might be more of the same. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Kevin Georg (kevin.l.georg@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