SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark Brownstown, Michigan, USA Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 09, 2005 -------------------------------------------------------------------
Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 24 108 108 Osprey 5 83 83 Bald Eagle 6 28 28 Northern Harrier 8 108 108 Sharp-shinned Hawk 130 286 286 Cooper's Hawk 1 21 21 Northern Goshawk 1 1 1 Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 0 Broad-winged Hawk 193 342 342 Red-tailed Hawk 4 89 89 Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0 Golden Eagle 0 0 0 American Kestrel 76 172 172 Merlin 1 3 3 Peregrine Falcon 0 1 1 Unknown 0 0 0 Total: 449 1242 1242 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 07:00:00 Observation end time: 16:30:00 Total observation time: 9.5 hours Official Counter: Calvin Brennan Observers: Fred Kirn, Jim Maki, John Elliot, Raburn Howland Visitors: Tim Smart Allen Chartier Weather: Today was virtually cloudless and without the haziness of the last couple of days. Winds were light to moderate and varied from east-northeast to east-southeast for much of the day before switching fully to the southeast in mid afternoon. Raptor Observations: The flight was very slow until mid afternoon when suddenly there was a strong push of birds that remained steady until the end of the count. This movement was foreshadowed by a massive passage of Monarchs that started perhaps a half hour before the raptor movement. At this time there were Monarchs occupying any and every area of sky being scanned for hawks. Obviously there must have been some unknown weather event to the northeast that delayed the flight of bird and butterfly alike until this point of the day. Oddly enough the most unusual sighting of the day was during the slow morning hours when a seasonally early juvenile Northern Goshawk flew low and directly over the counters. This is perhaps the earliest fall record for this species at this site. Non-raptor Observations: ======================================================================== Report submitted by Calvin Brennan ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) SMRR- Lake Erie Metropark information may be found at: http://www.smrr.net/
