SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 09, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 43280 51664 53179 Osprey 1 18 226 Bald Eagle 7 22 118 Northern Harrier 25 76 451 Sharp-shinned Hawk 338 1659 7339 Cooper's Hawk 74 175 352 Northern Goshawk 10 12 14 Red-shouldered Hawk 243 279 283 Broad-winged Hawk 11 102 91085 Red-tailed Hawk 1200 1383 1744 Rough-legged Hawk 6 9 9 Golden Eagle 1 1 1 American Kestrel 20 154 1711 Merlin 2 7 60 Peregrine Falcon 1 21 41 Unknown 0 0 0 Swainson's Hawk 1 1 10 Total: 45220 55583 156623 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:30:00 Observation end time: 17:00:00 Total observation time: 9.5 hours Official Counter: Jeff Schultz Observers: Calvin Brennan, Charlene Borchers, Jeff Loughman Weather: Today was clear and sunny for the most part with only a bit of mid afternoon cloud to provide a bit of a background. Winds were moderate to fairly strong from the northeast. Raptor Observations: After a week of unseasonably warm weather and south winds, we were reasonably assured that the first sunny day after the recent cold front would bring many birds. We would not be disappointed. It became quite apparent early in the day that we were in for a large movement of birds. As it turned out, we had no clue as to how massive the push of birds would be today. The Turkey Vulture flight started early and quite literally there were hundreds in view somewhere in the sky at any given time during the day, lasting until early evening. The resulting total obliterated the old single day record of just over 12 thousand several times over! In fact, the noon to 1 pm hour alone eclipsed that mark with a tally of 13,242 birds. Other highlights of the day were recording at least one individual of all 16 regularly occurring species including our tenth SwainsonÂ’s Hawk of the season and the first Golden Eagle of the fall. In all 45,220 birds were recorded for the day of which 43,280 were represented by our record TV flight. Non-raptor Observations: ======================================================================== Report submitted by Calvin Brennan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark information may be found at: http://www.smrr.net/
