Holiday Beach Conservation Area Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 12, 2014 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Turkey Vulture 10 98 98 Osprey 3 11 11 Bald Eagle 4 35 35 Northern Harrier 4 47 47 Sharp-shinned Hawk 77 383 383 Cooper's Hawk 8 34 34 Northern Goshawk 0 0 0 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 198 232 232 Red-tailed Hawk 18 55 55 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 20 108 108 Merlin 0 18 18 Peregrine Falcon 0 3 3 Unknown Accipiter 0 11 11 Unknown Buteo 0 15 15 Unknown Eagle 0 0 0 Unknown Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown Raptor 1 8 8 Total: 343 1059 1059 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 06:00:00 Observation end time: 15:00:00 Total observation time: 9 hours Official Counter: Jenna McDermott Observers: Andy Parsons, Bob Pettit, Jim McCoy, Urban Lundburg Visitors: An educational group of 15 people stayed on the grounds for the day, enjoying a talk about raptor identification on the tower, and a tour of the passerine and hawk-banding stations. Various other birders, photographers, and families joined us at the top of the tower and were lucky to see some Broad-wings above the lake and a few American Kestrels right over the tower. Weather: The morning started out chilly around 12C but warmed up nicely with a bit of sun to 18C with winds from the NNE. The clouds were quite low at some points so we had a few cases of disappearing hawks. Raptor Observations: The Broad-wings have begun! We had our first kettles today, totalling 198. 77 Sharp-shinned Hawks made up most of the rest of our numbers. At the end of the day we'd had 343 raptors of 9 species. The morning started off a bit slowly, but things picked up for the 4 middle hours of counting and dropped off again in the last two. Non-raptor Observations: Warblers also finally arrived today, the bushes around the tower were full of little wings and chip notes. Some species seen were Black-and-white, American Redstart, Blackburnian, Chestnut-sided, Black-throated Blue, Black-throated Green, and Wilson's Warblers. There was a fairly constant stream of passerines over the tower for the first few hours of the watch. Cormorant numbers have been dropping in the marsh while some migrating ducks have arrived. 2 Monarchs. See today's eBird list http://ebird.org/ebird/canada/view/checklist?subID=S19812069 Predictions: A cool day reaching a high of 16C with a chance of showers in the morning. NW winds should bring in some good raptors numbers, just in time for HawkFest! See our website for this weekend's schedule of events http://hbmo.ca/blog/festival-of-hawks-2014-full-schedule-of-events/ ======================================================================== Report submitted by Jenna McDermott ([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 Posting guidelines can be found at http://www.ofo.ca/site/page/view/information.ontbirdsguide
