The fall hawk-watching report
- Bruce Glick: Gone Birding
- October 6, 2018
- 1446
September brings not only migrating songbirds, but also the annual raptor migration. The hurricane that did so much damage along the East Coast also brought east winds as far west as Ohio. For several days in mid-September, the east winds evidently pushed migrating broad-winged hawks further west from their normal Pennsylvania routes.
Reuben Erb counted 314 broad-wings on Sept. 16 near Walnut Creek, and Ed Schlabach had 51 on Sept. 18 and 30 on Sept. 15. To put this in perspective, the previous highest fall count in the area was probably less than 30 in a single day.
I checked to see what the Cape May site reported for September. For the month of September, they had a total of 488 broad-wings, although they reported 4,078 ospreys, 1,139 merlins and 715 peregrine falcons.
At Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, birders saw 279 ospreys in September. This location was a good place to see bald eagles with 180 tallied, along with 687 sharp-shinned hawks and 7,928 broad-winged hawks. Hawk Mountain also reported 165 kestrels, 73 merlins and 22 peregrines.
Our best raptor-watching site is Erie Metropark, located on the south side of Detroit, Michigan. The site is now called Detroit River. I try to get up there at least once every fall, but this year I couldn’t get away during the best week. The broad-wings started showing up at Detroit River around Sept. 8 with 773 that day.
After that the numbers gradually increased with 22,437 on Sept. 19 and 10,319 on Sept. 22. The day I traveled to the Detroit River site, the winds changed from northwest to west, so the flight wasn’t as large as expected.
We did have nice, long looks at a low-flying peregrine falcon that had a full crop, evidently having feasted on an unsuspecting bird along the way.
There were lots of terns along the river at Detroit with a total of 85 caspians, plus small numbers of common and forester’s terns.
Other numbers at Detroit River included 1,627 sharp-shinned hawks, 17 ospreys, 130 northern harriers, 720 kestrels, 20 merlins and 27 peregrines.
Further west at the Duluth, Minnesota site, they had lots of bald eagles, 2,366 in all, along with 6,508 sharp-shins and 17,565 broad-wings.
The latest local rarity to show up was a California gull at Pleasant Hill Lake. It was observed by multiple birders with good photos to confirm the identification. I remember seeing my first California gull, also at Pleasant Hill, many years ago.
Good birding!
Email Bruce Glick at bglick2@gmail.com or call 330-317-7798.