Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch
Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 18, 2009
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Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
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Black Vulture 0 0 0
Turkey Vulture 491 20792 21274
Osprey 0 7 137
Bald Eagle 1 68 230
Northern Harrier 10 247 528
Sharp-shinned Hawk 66 6008 10022
Cooper's Hawk 5 189 266
Northern Goshawk 6 26 26
Red-shouldered Hawk 14 321 324
Broad-winged Hawk 0 85 22166
Red-tailed Hawk 108 2031 2083
Rough-legged Hawk 0 4 4
Golden Eagle 11 31 32
American Kestrel 4 737 2753
Merlin 2 15 65
Peregrine Falcon 0 65 121
Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0
Unknown Buteo 0 0 0
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 0 0
Total: 718 30626 60031
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Observation start time: 07:00:00
Observation end time: 15:30:00
Total observation time: 8.5 hours
Official Counter: Colin Horstead
Observers: Alf Rider, Chris Street, Dave Brown, Don Taylor,
Jacques Giraud, Jason McGuire, Kathy, Mac McAlpine,
Mark Cunningham, Mike Nelson, Paul Brown, Phil Waggett,
Rebecca Vile, Shay Redmond, Tom Thomas, Wayne Parnall
Visitors:
Lots of visitors today...in fact at one point we had 20-30 vehicles parked
along the roadway on Hawk Cliff Rd. Unfortunately, the lower birds were few
and far between and many visitors struggled to view any birds today.
Weather:
A beautiful sunny fall day with clear blue skies...great to be out and
enjoying the fall colours...but an extremely difficult sky in which to spot
the birds. Not a single cloud in the sky the entire day...and the air mass
was so dry that we weren't even getting any jet contrails lasting long
enough to use as reference points. Temp was much warmer than the past few
days, reaching a high of 9C. Winds were light from the NE and NNE.
Raptor Observations:
Even with such difficult viewing conditions we managed to spot a total of
718 birds. There were some good birds today including a couple of low
flying Golden Eagles (11) and a couple of the days Goshawks that sailed
right overhead (6).
Non-raptor Observations:
The passerine numbers were not nearly what they were from the previous
day...still good sized flocks of crows and blackbirds.
Predictions:
The coming week is predicted to see SW winds for several days in a row
which will not be very condusive to pushing birds down to the lake. I
imagine the flight for the next week will be spread anywhere between the
lakeshore and St. Thomas...possibly even London.
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Report submitted by Dave Brown ([email protected])
Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch information may be found at:
http://www.ezlink.on.ca/~thebrowns/HawkCliff/index.htm
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