With Doug L. away, Terrie Smith and I and a kettle [?] of others watched hawks at Cranberry today. What started out as a great day with perfect winds and eventually an amazing hawk watching sky fizzled about 11 o'clock to a social gathering where future and past trips interjected with an occasional 'oh, there's a Sharpie" passed the time.
By 1:30 we had run out of hawks entirely, but we did manage to find: Cooper's Hawk 10 Sharp-shinned Hawk 88 Northern Harrier 9 Rough-legged Hawk 2 [light phase] Red-tailed Hawk 19 American Kestrel 2 Merlin 1 Turkey Vulture 8 Total 139 birds Also seen were a few Monarchs, lots of dragonflies, thousands of Blue Jays, one Bluebird, a few Common Loons, lots of Yellow-rumped Warblers, a Marsh Wren and a Phoebe. A report of some Sharp-tailed Sparrows at Oshawa Second Marsh cleared the platform of most people at about 12:30 Cranberry Marsh is located at the foot of Hall's Road. Exit south from 401 on Salem Rd, go east to Hall's and then south almost to the lake. Geoff Carpentier Ajax From [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sun Oct 16 01:15:17 2005 Return-Path: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Delivered-To: [email protected] Received: from taiga.com (mail.taiga.com [204.11.32.182]) by king.hwcn.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 51573639D1 for <[email protected]>; Sun, 16 Oct 2005 01:15:17 -0400 (EDT) Received: (qmail 29329 invoked by uid 30); 16 Oct 2005 05:09:19 -0000 Message-ID: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: [email protected] From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 16 Oct 2005 01:10:19 -0400 Subject: [Ontbirds]HSR: Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch (15 Oct 2005) 1349 Raptors X-BeenThere: [email protected] X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list Reply-To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 16 Oct 2005 05:15:17 -0000 Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 15, 2005 ------------------------------------------------------------------- Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total ------------------ ----------- -------------- -------------- Black Vulture 0 0 0 Turkey Vulture 1045 6933 7294 Osprey 0 36 354 Bald Eagle 5 77 279 Northern Harrier 6 253 746 Sharp-shinned Hawk 187 3017 9009 Cooper's Hawk 12 172 324 Northern Goshawk 0 4 8 Red-shouldered Hawk 4 145 146 Broad-winged Hawk 0 16 34424 Red-tailed Hawk 56 1039 1208 Rough-legged Hawk 0 1 1 Golden Eagle 0 6 6 American Kestrel 32 490 3905 Merlin 1 54 166 Peregrine Falcon 0 58 113 Unknown 1 21 96 Prairie Falcon 0 1 1 Total: 1349 12323 58080 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Observation start time: 08:00:00 Observation end time: 16:00:00 Total observation time: 8 hours Official Counter: Ches Caister Observers: Colin Horstead, Dave Brown, Keith Sealy, Mac, Shay Redmond, Tim Foran, Tom Thomas Visitors: Lots....with everyone expecting a really good flight today. Tom, Colin, Mac, Brandon, Lauren, Bill, Don, Tim, Mike, Shay, Dave...official counter today was Ches. Weather: Well...the weather today was about as perfect as we could've hoped for...great looking clouds, drier and with very strong NW winds. Unfortunately, I think the only reason the flight wasn't as great today as predicted was that the cold front was still moving to the east for most of the morning...so the winds along eastern Lake Erie and along Lake Ontario were too much from the W and held the birds up. Raptor Observations: Not a bad flight today but still lacked the flurry of activity we normally would get on the NW winds and mix of sun and clouds. A few Bald Eagles today...and a Peregrine going back to the east. Most interesting bird was what appeared to be either a) DARK PHASE SWAINSON'S HAWK or b) DARK PHASE ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK that was headed east, away from the counters and therefore tough to id. Hopefully, the bird will return back westbound and we'll get a better look to properly id it. :) Non-raptor Observations: Tom had sharp eyes to pick up 3 SANDHILL CRANES headed towards the lake to the south of the count site. Predictions: Well...if it stays dry along the shoreline of Lake Erie in the morning and the winds are NW right away...then I think we could see a better flight. =======================================================================Report submitted by Dave Brown ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch information may be found at: http://www.ezlink.on.ca/~thebrowns/HawkCliff/index.htm Site Description: Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch: Oldest Hawkwatch in Ontario - since 1931 - located just east of Port Stanley on the cliff overlooking Lake Erie Directions to site: >From east 401, take the Highbury south cut off at London, follow Highbury (Hwy 30) south to St. Thomas. Highbury changes into South Edgeware at a large curve in the road to the west. Follow South Edgeware west to the first set of traffic lights - Burwell Road, turn left (south) and stay on this road. It becomes Fairview Ave (Regional Road 22), which runs directly into Hawk Cliff Road. You will see a sign for Hawkes Cliff Farm, where they sell fresh vegetables and a gravel road just beyond sign. Just continue down gravel road to viewing area. >From west 401, take the Highway # 4 (Colonel Talbot Rd.) exit south, through Talbotville, road now is Sunset Rd. continue towards St. Thomas; you will come to a veer in the road, straight up to St. Thomas, veer to the right for Port Stanley, follow Highway 4, now Sunset to Port Stanley. As you approach Port Stanley you will come to a large curve in the road with a sign saying East St, to the left. Take East St., and follow it to the first road left, (opposite Port Stanley Water Tower) Dexter Line. Follow Dexter Line approximately 2 km. and turn right down gravel road at Hawkes Cliff Farm, and follow gravel road to viewing area
