This is an official posting from the High Park Hawk Watch. Station: High Park, Toronto, Ontario View Period: September 13-15, 2010 Station coordinator: Don Barnett Counters: D. Barnett,H. Elliot C. Harte, M. Kelch, A.M. Leger, N. McHugh, D. Peuramaki, H. Shapiro, GTRW Webmasters: D. Woods I am posting preliminary totals for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday of this week. On Wednesday we had our biggest numbers of Broad-wing Hawks so far at 664. I will let Naish McHugh describe that day:
"What a day. It started slow, then slowly built up under fairly good weather conditions, but by 2.00 p.m. it was totally clouded over (100%) and everything tapered off and we were seriously thinking of packing in by 3.30 p.m. Then within less than an hour the sky opened up into high white clouds in the Blue. By then there were only 7 or 8 of us left and then the Broadwings started to kettle high up and stream giving us more Hawks in the last two hours than the total of the previous 6. The hourly totals were ( 13, 62, 146, 249, 71, 49, 264 & 230). It was amazing!" Our preliminary totals for Monday,Tuesday and Wednesday are: Species Sep 13 Sep 14 Sep 15 Turkey Vulture............6............14................9 Osprey....................3.............-................4 Bald Eagle................0.............1................3 Northern Harrier..........4.............7................7 Sharp-Shinned Hawk......251...........234..............338 Cooper's Hawk............10.............6................3 Northern Goshawk..........-.............-................- Red-shouldered Hawk.......-.............-................- Broad-winged Hawk........98...........213..............664 Red-tailed Hawk..........11.............5...............20 Rough-legged Hawk.........-.............-................- Golden Eagle..............-.............-................- American Kestrel.........27............37...............33 Merlin....................1.............1................- Peregrine Falcon..........2.............1................3 Unidentified..............2.............4................2 Total...................413...........524.............1086 High Park Site Description High Park is a 400 acre wooded park dominated by a Black Oak Savannah located just west of Downtown Toronto near Keele and Bloor. The park is operated by the City of Toronto Parks Department. The Count site (Hawk Hill) is located on a small hill at the north end of the Grenadier Restaurant parking lot. It is located about 1.5km (1 mile) north of Lake Ontario, at an elevation of 110 metres above sea level and 38 metres above Lake Ontario. The site location is N 43 degrees 37 minutes 03.8 seconds, W 79 degrees 28 minutes 56.5 seconds. This station is at the highest point and near the centre of the park; a steep slope that descends to a large pond is immediately west of the station. Full time counts have been recorded here since 1993. The following are partners in our raptor migration monitoring in the Greater Toronto Region: City of Toronto Parks and Culture Department, Toronto Ornithological Club, and Local Naturalist's Clubs. More information including a summary of our past observations is available at: http://www.greatertorontohawkwatch.com/ Observations for this season are not yet available. -- Howard Shapiro email: hprw2006-ha...@yahoo.ca _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to ONTBIRDS mailing list ONTBIRDS@hwcn.org For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
