Holiday Beach Conservation Area
Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada
Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 28, 2012
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Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
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Turkey Vulture 263 1559 1559
Osprey 1 60 60
Bald Eagle 6 95 95
Northern Harrier 8 194 194
Sharp-shinned Hawk 129 2392 2392
Cooper's Hawk 33 126 126
Northern Goshawk 0 0 0
Red-shouldered Hawk 0 5 5
Broad-winged Hawk 291 5660 5660
Red-tailed Hawk 13 179 179
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 2 2
American Kestrel 11 688 688
Merlin 3 47 47
Peregrine Falcon 0 22 22
Unknown Accipiter 0 8 8
Unknown Buteo 0 3 3
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 5 5
Black Vulture 0 1 1
Swainson's Hawk 1 1 1
Total: 759 11047 11047
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Observation start time: 06:30:00
Observation end time: 15:00:00
Total observation time: 8.5 hours
Official Counter: Todd Pepper
Observers: Claude Radley, Jim McCoy, John Craft, John Winebrenner,
Larry Ludwicki, Lisa Silvey
Visitors:
Another dozen visitors from Windsor-Essex County out for their first ever
look from the hawk tower based on the recent media coverage of HBMO being
rated as the 3rd best raptor migration location in continental North
America. Also our annual visitors from Indiana; a couple from London, ON,
and another couple from Toronto.
Weather:
Another beautiful fall day with temperatures ranging from 10 - 22C; mostly
clear skies and stable barometric pressure, but very little wind. Most
hours it was un-recordable. When the wind was perseptable it first blew
directly out of the north and then switched to directly out of the south at
12:00 EST. It must have been windier higher up as the heads on the wind
turbines also immediately turned to face south.
Raptor Observations:
Another day of birds very high up in the stratosphere! Higher than the
usual cumulus cloud layer and below a layer of clouds that looked like
broken up ice on a river or lake. At one point a flock of Turkey Vultures
seemed to be keeping pace with the contrail from a plane flying into the
Metro Detroit-Wayne County Airport.
We had a total of 759 birds of 11 species. The highlight was an
intermediate adult Swainson's Hawk first observed at the HBMO Lake Station
and shortly thereafter at the Hawk Tower.
Non-raptor Observations:
The Blue Jay migration just keeps getting bigger at 39,433 today. Up a
couple thousand from yesterday. Also interesting was the first Tundra Swans
of the year at 20 birds; 9 Killdeer; 1 Solitary Sandpiper; 18 Chimney
Swifts; 2 Ruby-throated Hummingbirds; 1 Eastern Phoebe; 1 "Traill's
Flycatcher; 9 Northern Flickers; 8 Red-breasted Nuthatch; 94 Kinglets -
likely Golden-crowned given the time of year; and 225 American Goldfinch.
We counted 14 Monarch butterflies, but since we were usually looking way
up in the sky we probably missed more than we counted.
Predictions:
Very similar to today with temperatures of 9 - 20C; sunny, winds out of the
north in the morning to 10km/hr switching to south-west in the afternoon.
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Report submitted by Todd Pepper ([email protected])
Holiday Beach Migration Observatory information may be found at:
http://hbmo.org/
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ONTBIRDS is presented by the Ontario Field Ornithologists - the provincial
birding organization.
Send bird reports to [email protected]
For information about ONTBIRDS visit http://www.ofo.ca/
