Coastal Bend Hawk Watch, Fall 1997

Rpt Date:   September 29, 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

.......... I really don't know what to say today.
We are now down to one collective group nerve between us all:

Species            9/29      Season
Black vulture       0        51
Turkey vulture      0        1
Osprey              2        50
Swallow-tail kite   0        7
White-tail kite     0        1
Miss. kite          6        2,790
Northern harrier    1        20
Sharp-shin hawk     24       157
Cooper's hawk       19       169
Harris' hawk        0        2
Red-shoulder hawk   1        26
Broadwing hawk      302,180  759,337 (NOTE: 1 dark morph)
Swainson's hawk     1        159
White-tail hawk     0        2
Red-tail hawk       2        14
Rough-legged hawk   0        1
Amer. kestrel       13       88
Merlin              2        11      (merlins accidentally omitted on day report filed)
Peregrine falcon    1        21
Prairie falcon      0        1
Unk accipiter       33       135
Unk. buteo          1        14
Unk. falcon         1        7
Unk. raptor         7        98
Total:              302,292  763,161

Okay, I know what to say now.

Shhh, can you hear it? ..... Yeah, that. That's it. That's the sound of history being made. If anyone had told us we were not only going to have yet ANOTHER six digit day today (breaking yet another record in the process!), but one that would completely blow all previous records for Hazel Bazemore out of the water ..... including the ones from this weekend! .... we'd have shaken our heads and thought they'd been in the sun longer than we! Granted, we all had a feeling. We could barely tear ourselves away last night after watch ended; didn't want to quite let go yet.

Come this morning, Bill and I had such a strong feeling that today would be good that we both took off work in the morning to go back out to the site, hearing the call of the watch echoing in our heads. Jo Creglow (known on site as "Eagle Eye Jo") knew it; she brought her little pup along after a visit to the vet, so as not to miss any action. Joyce Penny has a week off from her work and is spending it nailed to the watch site, providing invaluable support. Jimmy Swartz greeted his hummingbirds with his daily feeders before settling in to go on watch, as he has every day since the watch began (he celebrated his 74th birthday on site last weekend!).

Cumies were popping like popcorn all over the sky (a WAY different situation than the weekend's six-mile-high bluebird skies!). Winds were still easterly but good. A little more humid than we'd been told to expect, but tolerable. We all still had a collective group feeling that we just weren't quite through counting good numbers. We didn't know, of course, what those numbers were going to be, but it seemed pretty certain they'd be lower, since the peak had seemed to take place on Saturday.

Gads, but we were wrong. We were sooo-ooo-oooo wrong. You know what they say about assuming something ...

Bill and I arrived on site to find the official counters furiously counting, eyes rolled back in their heads,  the tote board already showing more than 130,000 broadwings. The time on the clock read 11:30 am. Ten thousand broadwings took to the skies with the first early morning thermals on lift-off, and for the next six hours, rivers of hawks ... some estimated at a mile wide and streaming for what seemed to be forever .... streamed and streamed and flowed and eddied around, past and over the watch site. It was the most unbelievable, incredible sight any of us had ever seen.

Tonight, the numbers can speak for themselves. Hell, they're SHOUTING for themselves so loud that Veracruz must be able to hear. I think I can safely speak for the entire watch group that we are all completely, totally, entirely, unequivocally, irreversibly, absolutely, and metaphorically blown away by what happened today. If we hadn't been there ourselves to see it and to count it; I don't think even Bill and I would have believed it! By the way, our sincerest group apologies to anyone on the 17th tee of the golf course adjacent to Hazel Bazemore, at our backs. When we topped 300,000 broadwings on the board this afternoon, the decibel levels from the cheers of our group would have done a Rolling Stones concert proud. Icing on the cake came when Walt Jenkins of San Antonio announced that not only had he just seen more hawks in one day than in his entire life, but added five birds to his life list while doing it!

Whew. We're just holding our breath tonight to see what happens next! How many more can there be left?!?! (Hey, you guys up north been sandbagging broadies on us?! Someone sure opened the floodgates!).

Stay tuned ... same Bat-Time ... same Bat-Channel ...