Holiday Beach Hawk Watch
Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 09, 2024
-------------------------------------------------------------------
Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
------------------ ----------- -------------- --------------
Turkey Vulture 3551 11181 13078
Osprey 0 1 22
Bald Eagle 14 71 198
Northern Harrier 4 101 624
Sharp-shinned Hawk 137 838 6209
Cooper's Hawk 6 52 142
American Goshawk 0 0 0
Red-shouldered Hawk 0 5 6
Broad-winged Hawk 0 71 4329
Red-tailed Hawk 25 133 505
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 2 2
American Kestrel 25 211 1583
Merlin 2 8 65
Peregrine Falcon 2 15 56
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
Mississippi Kite 0 0 1
Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1
Total: 3766 12689 26821
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Observation start time: 07:00:00
Observation end time: 16:00:00
Total observation time: 9 hours
Official Counter: Kiah Jasper
Observers: Hugh Kent, Jeremy Bensette, Juliette Herdman, Karen Padbury,
Kit McCann, Liz Kent, Mike Jaber, Noel Herdman,
Peter Veighey
Visitors:
It was a busy day for visitors on the tower, which always helps with
spotting and the comradery is nice : ) Thanks to Mike, Peter, Noel,
Julliete, Hugh, Liz, Karen, Kit and Jeremy for helping with the count
today. We were visited by Mike and Gaia from Ann Arbor, Michigan as well as
Walter from Tecumseh. Mike from Amherstburg joined us in the morning as
well.
Weather:
The morning started off with a classic early October feel to it, light
Northwest wind, a mainly sunny sky and 11 degrees C. The wind shifted to
WNW, W, WSW and ESE (it just couldn't make up it's mind!) throughout the
day, gusting up to 30kph but mainly staying around 15kph. The temperature
topped out around 20 degrees C, though the wind made it feel colder. The
sky remained mainly clear of clouds, and the barometer changed between
29.91 and 29.88.
Raptor Observations:
Our busiest day of the season so far for raptor numbers, with 3,766
recorded. This was mainly due to a large movement of Turkey Vultures (3551)
in the afternoon, the high flight lines of them keeping us on our toes!
Besides the TVs it was a rather low day for raptor numbers, the only other
species making it into triple digits being Sharp-shinned Hawk (137). We
also had decent numbers of Bald Eagles migrating by, with 14 recorded. 2
Merlin and 2 Peregrine Falcons were highlights.
Non-raptor Observations:
Quieter than yesterday on passerine front, especially for warblers and Blue
Jays (only 7,350 today vs over 23,000 yesterday). We recorded 321 American
Goldfinches and 102 Yellow-rumped Warblers flying over though, so there was
some activity. Our first Pine Siskin of the season flew over, and our first
Field Sparrow was seen foraging below the tower. The highlight today was
American White Pelicans though, in numbers we haven't recorded before on
the count. It started off with the 72 from yesterday, then more and more
small flocks started joining them, finally totaling at least 228 birds. It
was fun watching them kettle overhead with Turkey Vultures all afternoon.
83 species were recorded from the tower today, for the full list click here
- https://ebird.org/checklist/S198160451
Predictions:
Tomorrow is meant to be a cool (high of 16) and sunny day, with very light
winds. The wind is allegedly coming from the North in the morning,
switching to the South later in the afternoon. Winds aloft (800m) are meant
to be from the North all day. It should be a fun day on the tower! As of
right now Friday looks to have stronger Southwest winds, so I tomorrow
should be the better day.
========================================================================
Report submitted by Kiah Jasper ([email protected])
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
--
Ontbirds and Birdnews are moderated email Listservs provided by the Ontario
Field Ornithologists (OFO) as a service to all birders in Ontario.
Birdnews is reserved for announcements, location summaries, first of year
reports, etc. To post a message on Birdnews, send an email to:
[email protected].
If you have any questions or concerns, contact the Birdnews Moderators by email
at [email protected]. Please review posting rules and guidelines at
http://ofo.ca/site/content/listserv-guidelines
To find out more about OFO, please visit our website at ofo.ca or Facebook page
at https://www.facebook.com/OntarioFieldOrnithologists.
