Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch
Port Stanley, Ontario, Canada
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 26, 2025
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Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
------------------ ----------- -------------- --------------
Black Vulture 0 0 0
Turkey Vulture 2356 16053 16504
Osprey 0 7 67
Bald Eagle 36 128 168
Northern Harrier 12 200 589
Sharp-shinned Hawk 83 1195 2949
Cooper's Hawk 26 139 182
American Goshawk 1 5 5
Red-shouldered Hawk 53 133 136
Broad-winged Hawk 3 8 7117
Red-tailed Hawk 339 831 860
Rough-legged Hawk 4 9 10
Golden Eagle 16 61 61
American Kestrel 3 246 1213
Merlin 0 30 98
Peregrine Falcon 0 27 44
Unknown Accipitrine 0 0 0
Unknown Buteo 0 0 0
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 0 0
Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1
Total: 2932 19072 30004
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Observation start time: 07:00:00
Observation end time: 15:00:00
Total observation time: 8 hours
Official Counter: Tom Bolohan
Observers: Chris Burris, Dave Brown, Jude Szabo, Ken Wootton,
Pete Read, Ronnie Goodhand, Tom Stewart
Visitors:
Tons of visitors at the viewing platform today with a large group from the
OFO (lead by Pete Read) and then a smaller group from Kitchener-Waterloo.
Add to that several others that were there on their own and it was a full
house for sure! There were lots of great questions today from visitors and
we had fun answering them while at the same time enjoying the really good
flight for the day. Thanks to everyone who helped spot the birds in the
pure blue skies!
Weather:
Not a cloud in the sky all day and light to moderate NE winds made for a
very nice hawk watching day... but also VERY difficult to spot the birds as
they passed high overhead. Temps were quite cold to start at -1C and
getting to a high of 11C. The whole region is under a high pressure system.
Raptor Observations:
We had an awesome flight of raptors today... and they started early with
some nice looking Rough-legged Hawks (including both light and dark morph
birds) that crossed just above tree top level and not far N of the viewing
platform. A great looking young American Goshawk came right along the
cliff edge providing some excellent looks and photo ops. Another
interesting bird was a dark morph (likely adult western calurus ssp.)
Redtail that flew past providing some photo ops (see eBird checklists). And
finally, the target species for the very large number of visitors was the
Golden Eagles (16) several of which flew directly overhead and not too high
up providing fantastic views.
Lots of other species as well with lots of adult accipiters now moving
through along with buteos like Redtails and Red-shoulders and even 3 vert
late Broad-winged Hawks. Only 3 Kestrels from the falcons side.
Non-raptor Observations:
There were lots of eBird checklists submitted to the Hawk Cliff hotspot for
today so check them out for a look at the non-raptors seen for the day.
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Report submitted by Dave Brown ([email protected])
Hawk Cliff Hawkwatch information may be found at:
http://www.ezlink.ca/~thebrowns/HawkCliff/index.htm
More site information at hawkcount.org:
https://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=392
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