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View day list of other species seen on 9-20-97 at
Hazel Bazemore NEW!
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Rpt Date: September 20, 1997
Site: Hazel Bazemore
County Park
Corpus Christi, Nueces County, TX
27 deg. 51.936"
97 deg. 38.560"
Reports: Patty Beasley (pbeasley@electrotex.com)
Counter: Joel Simon & Glenn Swartz
(Hawk Watch Int'l)
(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
Species
9/20 Season
Black vulture 7
51
Turkey vulture 0
1
Osprey
2 16
Swallow-tail kite 0 7
White-tail kite 0
1
Miss. kite
18 2,668
Northern harrier 0
5
Sharp-shin hawk 7
19
Cooper's hawk 13
29
Harris' hawk 1
1 (note: immature)
Red-shoulder hawk 3 18
Broadwing hawk 12,053 31,295
(note: one dark morph)
Swainson's hawk 4
120
White-tail hawk 1
2
Red-tail hawk 0
3
Amer. kestrel 1
6
Merlin
0 3
Peregrine falcon 0
6
Unk accipiter 4
17
Unk. buteo
6 12
Unk. falcon 0
2
Unk. raptor 7
71
Total:
12,127 34,353
NOTES: Thought we'd get fooled by Mother Nature when that
front slowed and
left us high and dry the first seven hours of the watch. Come 3:15
p.m. CDT,
the floodgates opened up and the broadwings sailed through. Majority
(99%) of
the broadwings came through between 3:15-5:00 p.m. CDT. Saw our
first
10,000+ day today (right on schedule!), within two days of the
historic
average of September 18th. We're looking for another good day tomorrow,
and
a possibly even better day on Monday, IF the weather stays with
us.
Other migrants: 49 white ibis (mostly immatures); 74 white
pelicans; 904 anhingas;
10 wood storks and 21 roseate spoonbills.
Also reported at the pond in Hazel Bazemore Park: one immature
male vermilion
flycatcher; one groove-billed ani (vocalizing and visual sight)
along with the
other usual migrants.
Observers on hand today: more than one hundred, including two birding
clubs
from San Antonio, the Rockport Birding Club, Glenn Perrigo's Vertebrate
Zoology class
from Texas A&M Kingsville, and visitors from all over the state
and country
(welcome Michael Bierly from Tennessee and Bernie & Janie Schiff
from Delaware).
We're glad to have you all!
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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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