Holiday Beach Conservation Area Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 12, 2013 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 7 131 131 Osprey 1 28 28 Bald Eagle 9 78 78 Northern Harrier 7 75 75 Sharp-shinned Hawk 156 1044 1044 Cooper's Hawk 19 88 88 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 1 1 Broad-winged Hawk 7 176 176 Red-tailed Hawk 3 87 87 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 52 258 258 Merlin 5 32 32 Peregrine Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0 Unknown Buteo 0 0 0 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 0 0 Unknown Raptor 0 1 1 Swainson's Hawk 2 2 2 Total: 268 2002 2002 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 06:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 10 hours Official Counter: Todd Pepper Observers: Dennis Patrick, Gwen Patrick, Janina Radley, Jim McCoy Visitors: Lots of action on the tower today. Political and administrative representatives of Tourism Windsor Essex Pelee Island introduced the BIRDINGINWINDSORESSEX App for iPhone, Android, & Blackberry smart phones. The App will assist birders to discover their favourite places to bird in Windsor Essex, businesses that provide local birding services, as well as tourism sercies such as restaurants, accomodation, wineries and other attractions.In addition, Tony & Carol Kemp from Owen Sound spent the day on the tower; Phil & Mary Collins from Mississauga were back for a 2nd day, and I am sorry to tell them they were right, as soon as they left the birds started to flood in; Ed & JoAnn Kovarik from Tecumseh were rewarded on their 2nd trip out to HBMO this fall. Neil Monaghan from Windsor joined the crowd at noon and hung in the rest of the afternoon; and Tim and Dennis from Leamington (via Vancouver)had a good 2 hour learning experience. Weather: The temperature ranged from 21 - 26.5C; winds were out of the WNW in the a.m. and NW in the p.m. in the range of 8 - 20 km/hr. It was completely overcast until the sun finally broke through around 1 p.m. and then was mostly clear during the rest of the count. By the way, to respond to the many people who have asked me how I see raptors at 6:00, HBMO and all other raptor and passerine stations in North America remain on our original time zone. For HBMO that is Eastern Standard Time. So, 6:00 a.m. EST is 7:00 a.m. Daylight Savings Time. Raptor Observations: Only 4 raptors in the first 3 hours of the count, but then the skies opened and the migration we were hoping for started up. We had a total of 268 birds of 10 species. Sharp-shins were the predominant bird at 156; Kestrels came in second at 52. Bald Eagles and Merlins both showed well with 9 and 5 birds respectively. The highlight of the day however, were 2 intermediate-plumaged juvenile SWAINSON'S HAWK that first showed up over the lake and in the clouds at 3:30. The 2 buteos then turned north in the front of the hawk tower, flew out to approximately the middle of the marsh and then dropped down in height and headed west again passing the hawk tower at 3:39 p.m. EST. Non-raptor Observations: It was also a fairly busy non-raptor day. A second Common Gallinule was found in the marsh today in addition to the one that has been there since the fall count commenced. Other highlights include: Chimney Swift - 9; the 2nd Blue Jay of the season (last year the major movement of Blue Jay started on September 17th); Northern Rough-wing Swallow - 64; the highest count of Cedar Waxwing so far this year at 760 birds. This is the 3rd highest single day for Cedar Waxwings, just slightly under the 2nd highest single day count of 789 birds on 9/24/09. Six warbler species were identified and 24 warbler species went unidentified due to light conditions. We also had the highest single day counts for House Finch and American Goldfinch so far this year at 116 and 103 birds, respectively. 7 Monarch Butterfly Predictions: A good raptor forecast! North winds up to 25 km/hr; temperature ranging from 12 - 16C - so bring a jacket: and variable cloudiness to hopefully provide a backdrop to the expected start of the Broad-winged Hawk migration. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Todd Pepper ([email protected]) Holiday Beach Conservation Area information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/ _______________________________________________ ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial birding organization. Send bird reports to [email protected] For information about ONTBIRDS including how to unsubscribe visit http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdssetup
