View September, 1997 cumulative spreadsheet
View August, 1997 cumulative spreadsheet
View day list of other species seen at Hazel Bazemore
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Rpt Date: September 26, 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
9/26 Season
Black vulture
0 51
Turkey vulture
0 1
Osprey
1 29
Swallow-tail kite 0
7
White-tail kite 0
1
Miss. kite
6 2,781
Northern harrier 0
15
Sharp-shin hawk 14
100
Cooper's hawk
12 110
Harris' hawk
0 1
Red-shoulder hawk 2
21
Broadwing hawk
48,661 120,308 (NOTE: 4 dark morphs today)
Swainson's hawk 6
143
White-tail hawk 0
2
Red-tail hawk
1 11
Amer. kestrel
2 56
Merlin
0 7
Peregrine falcon 2
13
Prairie falcon
1 1
Unk accipiter
7 58
Unk. buteo
0 13
Unk. falcon
0 6
Unk. raptor
5 88
Total:
48,721 123,823
Notes:
Bird of the day: a lone prairie falcon (the first in the watch) that not only came in close, but stayed and circled the watch site a few times, probably examining teh watchers as minutely as the watchers examined it. Swainson's continue to come over in record numbers.
Joel Simon and Glenn Swartz report flights took the usual pattern this morning, and except for a very short period where 3 clouds were counted and logged, it was a "bluebird" day with zero clouds for the rest of it. Kettles began appearing between 10:00-12:00 CDT, with the largest bringing in 24,500 hawks. After the two-hour stream of hawks, broadwings trickled to about a thousand over the next five hours. However, at 5:15, another kettle appeared, and kept coming --- thirty minutes later, the last of the broadwings came through at 5:40pm CDT, totalling 22,800 for the kettle river of hawks. Four dark morphs came through in the broadwing flights today, three in that one kettle of 22,800.
Other raptors were good; sharpies and Cooper's continue to come in good numbers; this is the best year in numbers of accipiters in the last three years, notes Glenn Swartz, who has records of prior Hazel Bazemore hawk watch counts going back more than a decade.
The following comments were received from John Economidy, HMANA, via email who was on site at Hazel Bazemore today to see the flights:
"The Prairie Falcon was a "flight level 3" bird--easily recognizable with visual aid, not a super high flyer."
"The dark morph BWs were confirmed by multiple observers. One was photographed, although I do not know how good the slide will turn out."
Whataday! Keep looking up!
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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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