Holiday Beach Conservation Area Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 26, 2015 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 136 488 488 Osprey 1 64 64 Bald Eagle 14 99 99 Northern Harrier 27 283 283 Sharp-shinned Hawk 209 4152 4152 Cooper's Hawk 0 44 44 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 36 16115 16115 Red-tailed Hawk 3 78 78 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 16 795 795 Merlin 0 30 30 Peregrine Falcon 0 10 10 Unknown Accipiter 0 5 5 Unknown Buteo 0 13 13 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown Raptor 0 8 8 Swainson's Hawk 0 1 1 Total: 442 22186 22186 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Bob Pettit, Dorothy McLeer Observers: Bob Pettit, Donny Moore, Jim McCoy, Michael Williamson, Olga Klekner, Scott Fauteux Visitors: Today is the annual visit of Dr. Daniel MennillÕs ornithology class from the University of Windsor. The large group of about 70 students were in three groups and visited the hawk banding station, songbird banding station and the hawk tower. At each venue students were instructed in the methods and protocol used to (hawk and songbird station) capture, analyze, and band birds; (hawk tower) how to identify, count, collect data and enter all in a database. See Dr. MennillÕs webpage at the university for photos of their field trip. Weather: Temp started at 19C and ended at 24.6C. Wind started NE and moved to East for most of the remaining day.Cloud cover was from 80% to 30% by dayÕs end. The cloud cover helped to give some contrast to the high birds that tried our patients all day. Raptor Observations: 8 species of hawks greater the day with mostly high looks. Sharpies topped the list with just over 200 and Vultures were second with 136. It was not the best day for ÒlearningÓ hawks since most were specks on a mix of white and blue background. For an east wind the day was good. Non-raptor Observations: Songbird were for the most part not present. There were many Blue Jays. A total of 20,550 were tallied. It was a group effort to spot and count them. Predictions: Mostly cloudy skies early, then partly cloudy in the afternoon. High 70F. Winds SE at 10-15 MPH. KEY ECLIPSE TIMES:8:48 PM Moon enters penumbra; 9:07 partial eclipse begins; 10:48 Mid-eclipse; 12:27 Partial eclipse ends; 12:55 moon exits penumbra. Keep looking up! ======================================================================== Report submitted by Bob Pettit (redknot@earthlink.net) Holiday Beach Conservation Area information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/