Detroit River Hawk Watch Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 15, 2023 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 4349 32375 34508 Osprey 0 2 53 Bald Eagle 0 15 87 Northern Harrier 3 68 423 Sharp-shinned Hawk 233 994 4751 Cooper's Hawk 0 19 30 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 5 24 24 Broad-winged Hawk 1 63 107645 Swainson's Hawk 0 0 0 Red-tailed Hawk 30 156 242 Rough-legged Hawk 1 1 1 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 4 247 1232 Merlin 0 5 36 Peregrine Falcon 4 15 35 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 1 Unknown Falcon 0 0 1 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 0 0 Total: 4630 33984 149069 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 17:00:00 Total observation time: 8.5 hours Official Counter: Andrew Sturgess, Kevin Georg Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, Mark Hainen, Rosemary Brady Visitors: We welcome visitors to our site and are very willing to share migration information, photography and ID tips with them. We have cards and pamphlets, so come and talk to us. However, during times of high traffic, requiring extra focus and concentration, we would respectfully ask that everyone use their indoor voices and allow us to fulfill our mission to the best of our abilities. Thank you. Weather: Back in the saddle again. After a day off, due to significant rainfall, we were back at it. The wind was NNW all day, and a persistent wind it was. It peaked in midafternoon at fifteen mph, with very healthy gusts, but fell a little towards day’s end. Curiously, this wind blew the water out of our end of the lake, perhaps Port Clinton, OH is flooded today, but a sizable drop in water level is usually associated with a SW wind. Temperatures neared the mid-fifty range but felt about five degrees cooler. The barometer was slowly dropping all day. Skies were a little bit of this and a lot of that. “This” being a blue sky with little cloud cover, “that” being a leaden stratus layer that gave one a feeling of winter yet to come. A light rain did finally fall as we departed after spending extra time counting turkey vultures. Raptor Observations: Turkey vultures took up where they left off, but with more lightly populated, slower flows today. The winds scattered the flight lines all over the sky as if they had a multiple-choice question before them with no wrong answers. In the afternoon hours they picked up the pace a little and we finished with a total of 4,349. Sharp-shins were the other active mover today with 233. None of them looked comfortable as they battled their way into the wind oscillating like yo-yos on an invisible string. Red-tailed hawks made a respectable showing with thirty of them making the scene. Five red-shouldered hawks joined them on the journey. Three northern harriers made the trip today. Peregrine falcons easily cut through the wind, four of them were counted today. The kestrels were almost MIA with only four being seen. One broad-winged hawk, maybe the last one, was tallied today. Our local osprey was still present but not counted. One pleasant surprise today was our first rough-legged hawk of the season, a light morph. These birds have been scarce at our site the last two years and we are hoping for a better count this year. Non-raptor Observations: We had another pleasant surprise this afternoon when we spotted a little gull out by the entrance buoys. We had one stay for a couple of weeks last year. This one seemed to prefer the company of a few Bonaparte’s gulls and common terns. The marsh was full of water this morning when we drove in but all mud flats when we departed due to the drop in the water level of the lake. The kinglets seem to have arrived in the hedges behind us. A pair of common mergansers were seen flying out of Dodge this afternoon. Plenty of swallows are still at work cleaning the skies with a lot of help from the gulls; there is a lot of biomass in the skies above us. Our first murders of crows started to pass today, blue jays are still flying but in diminished numbers. Predictions: Another ditto day tomorrow. Winds from the NNW around the ten-mph range, lots of cloud cover, just under twenty percent chance of rain, barometer rising slightly, with temperatures in the same zip code as today. Hopefully, the birds will turn up in the same numbers. ======================================================================== 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-2023