Holiday Beach Hawk Watch Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 17, 2023 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 9956 39515 42515 Osprey 0 4 45 Bald Eagle 2 55 179 Northern Harrier 7 266 638 Sharp-shinned Hawk 384 2356 7559 Cooper's Hawk 11 111 202 American Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 14 76 76 Broad-winged Hawk 7 133 56718 Red-tailed Hawk 9 220 395 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 1 1 1 American Kestrel 8 1303 2498 Merlin 1 21 116 Peregrine Falcon 2 38 76 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 Total: 10402 44099 111018 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Hugh Kent Observers: Liz Kent, Michael Arthurs, Noel Herdman Visitors: Big thanks to Michael and Noel who helped observe and count on another busy day. We welcomed two school groups to the Tower, with the first able to observe the large Turkey Vulture stream. It was good to meet Sharon from Mount Bridges and Sandra from Glencoe who took a great interest in the Hawk Watch. Weather: Today was overcast with a moderate wind generally from the west. The temperature remained in the low teens all day. Visibility was good. Raptor Observations: Turkey Vultures took a time to wake up, but they must have been on a collective alarm call because over 6000 streamed past in an hour late morning, ending with an overall count of 9,956, frustratingly short of 10k but still an impressive number. They all streamed past to the north of us. Sharp-shinned Hawks (384) are still passing in good numbers. A few buteos accompanied the TVs, with nearly half of them Red-shouldered Hawks (14). Oh, we also had our first Golden Eagle of the season, an immature bird just before the big TV stream. We had twelve species today. Non-raptor Observations: A day with a good variation of species; Purple Finch, Horned Grebe and Golden Eagle all new for the season. We also saw Common Loon (2), Trumpeter Swan (3) and Pine Siskin (17) demonstrating that the season is moving on. There were many Blackbirds of 4 species chattering around the Tower all day and good numbers of 5 species of Sparrow interspersed with many Yellow-rumped Warblers (32) . Blue Jays(3560) were also passing in reasonable numbers, together with American Crows (225) whose numbers are starting to build. There were plenty of ducks on the marsh with movement in all day. Ring-necked Duck (230) numbers continue to build. The list is at https://ebird.org/checklist/S152503554 Predictions: The forecast tomorrow is for a moderate wind from the south south west, partly cloudy with the temperature rising to the mid teens. We suspect that the likelihood of large numbers may be reduced for the next few days as the wind remains in the south or west and showers are forecast. However we can still expect a similar mix and hopefully a few buteos. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Hugh Kent (Hughnkent@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