View September, 1997 cumulative spreadsheet
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Surf's up! Thank you, Mr. Weather Front-That-Almost-Was.
Birders and hawkers in the Coastal Bend area, get out to Hazel Bazemore County Park Thursday morning; Joel Simon reports over 250 raptors coasted in on the front's edge and set down in the brush and trees around the bluff and Nueces River basin tonight between 5:00 - 5:30 pm. Should be a nice liftoff tomorrow!
Coastal Bend Hawk Watch, Fall 1997
Site: Hazel Bazemore
County Park
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, TX
Lat. West 27 degrees, 51.936 minutes
Long. North 97 degrees, 38.560 minutes
Reports: Patty Beasley (pbeasley@electrotex.com)
Counter: Joel Simon
(site manned 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Aug 15-Nov 15)
Sponsors: Hawk Watch International
Support: Hawk Migration Association of
North America
Audubon Outdoor Club of Corpus Christi
Rpt Date: September 10, 1997
8/15/97 forward
Species
9/10 Watch to Date
Black vulture 0
23
Turkey vulture 0
1
Osprey
0 4
Swallow-tail kite 0
7
Miss. kite
23 2,437
Northern harrier 0
1
Sharp-shin hawk 1
8
Cooper's hawk 2
10
Red-shoulder hawk 0
6
Broadwing hawk 246
585
Swainson's hawk 10
73
White-tail hawk 0
1
Red-tail hawk 0
3
Merlin
0 2
Ameri. kestrel 1
2
Unk accipiter 0
2
Unk. buteo
0 5
Unk. falcon 0
1
Unk. raptor 2
13
Total:
285 3,183
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Hazel Bazemore County Park has been the site of raptor migration
counts
since the 1970's. Beginning in 1990, the Hawk Migration Association
of
North America began conducting 10-day standardized counts for fall
raptor
migration. In 1997, Hawk Watch International sponsored the first
3-month
standardized count for the fall raptor migration. The tiny county
park was
once the best-kept raptor migration secret in the country, but
is rapidly
gaining recognition as the having the highest concentration of
migrating
raptors of any one location in the continental United States. Peak
fall
migration days bring well over 100,000 raptors in one day through
the
Nueces River basin and bluff located within the park boundaries.
Season
totals can run well over as high as half a million. Funneling actions
of
fall weather systems aid in the consolidation over the park of
migrating
raptors from both the Central and Eastern flyways, and on occasion,
we
suspect, some Western flyway incursions.
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To find Hazel Bazemore Park take FM624 west from SH77 for about
1 mile to
the road on the right with a park sign marking it. The park road
is just on
the west side of the water canal that crosses FM624. For more information,
see the Hazel
Bazemore page on the Audubon Outdoor Club web site.
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To go to the hawk watch site, go in the park entrance, make a left
as soon
as you get across the speed bump, and follow the winding road to
the crest
of the hill (past the restrooms, a covered picnic pavilion and
around the next bend).
Where the road makes a bend to the left is where we park, and sit
under the trees
(up against the 17th tee box to the golf course behind the park).
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