Holiday Beach Conservation Area
Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 23, 2013
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Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
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Turkey Vulture 4363 24760 28372
Osprey 0 19 76
Bald Eagle 6 74 297
Northern Harrier 11 114 333
Sharp-shinned Hawk 88 1194 5705
Cooper's Hawk 8 222 474
Northern Goshawk 0 0 0
Red-shouldered Hawk 17 38 56
Broad-winged Hawk 0 3 48629
Red-tailed Hawk 71 413 780
Rough-legged Hawk 2 4 4
Golden Eagle 0 4 6
American Kestrel 2 233 1123
Merlin 0 17 77
Peregrine Falcon 0 10 30
Unknown Accipiter 0 0 0
Unknown Buteo 0 0 6
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 0 1
Gyrfalcon 0 1 1
Mississippi Kite 0 0 1
Swainson's Hawk 0 0 7
Total: 4568 27106 85978
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Observation start time: 08:00:00
Observation end time: 16:30:00
Total observation time: 8.5 hours
Official Counter: Todd Pepper
Observers: Dennis Patrick, Gwen Patrick, Jim McCoy, Larry Ludwicki,
Olga Klekner
Visitors:
Donna Bedard from Mississauga made her annual pilgrimage to HBMO today,
staying most of the day and helping to pick out some of the high flyers.
The couple from Thunder Bay came back today to see the tail end of the
TV's, and helped pick out Red-tails while I was counting black specks in
the sky through my scope. Thanks to Jim for getting there early today and
picking up the first 4 raptors for the day, and to Larry for hanging in
until the last bird of the day.
Weather:
Variable cloudiness was certainly the description for today. While it was a
chilly day with temperatures between 4.6 and 8.6C it felt even chillier
when we lost the sun behind clouds. The winds were primarily out of the NW
generally in the 12 - 15 km/hr range.
Raptor Observations:
It was a busy day with our first count of over 3,000 TV's. We actually
ended the day with 4,363 - the last one flying over at 1620 EST. Also a
nice mix of other raptors with a day total of 4,568 birds of 9 species. The
best bird of the day (sorry again Jim) was a dark Rough-legged Hawk that
passed just to the south of the tower around 1530 EST. Not counted as
migrating as it did not fly west, was an adult Peregrine that came in and
strafed the plastic owl on the flag pole, flew off to the south-east, then
came back a few minutes later to strafe the owl again and again go back to
the south-east.
Non-raptor Observations:
It was our first 10,000+ non-raptor day for the fall count season. The cold
weather must have triggered something that finally got species such as Tree
Swallows, American Robins, American Crows and the "blackbirds" finally
moving. We had 9,010 Red-winged Blackbird, 65% of the total; 3,360 American
Crow, 27% of the total; and in 3rd place at 5% was European Starling at 673
birds. Best non-raptor of the day was an Eastern Meadowlark, the first of
the fall.
Predictions:
The forecast for Thursday has changed and it is back to West winds instead
of North-West. North winds have been pushed back to Saturday now. The
forecasted wind speed is 20 km/hr and temperatures from 1 - 8C. Another day
of variable cloudiness.
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Report submitted by Todd Pepper ([email protected])
Holiday Beach Conservation Area information may be found at:
http://hbmo.ca/
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