Report Date:  10/07/98

All right, you all, get those binos polished up! Yes, we had hawks today, and tomorrow will be just as good if not better; that's my strictly gut-reaction prediction.

The skies were partly cloudy, the air was crisp in the morning, and cool during the day, and the winds were perfect; N about 6-11 kph. The hawks that we estimated were hunkered down made it through today, and we had some really nice surprises. Not the least of which are the numbers of Swainson's hawks; what a flight!! Singles did their usual route overhead in the morning and early afternoon, then suddenly, a kettle of about 30 or so winged overhead. That set my personal best record for number of Swainson's at once! Before I could even start kicking up my heels in a "happy dance" "Eagle Eye" Jo Creglow called out she had some hawks in the western sky. We cruised over to her side, sighted in on her trajectory, and scanned. Yep, there's a few kettling ... wait ... those aren't broadies ... those were Swainson's! Oh boy, this is neat! Then Jo said, "uh, hey, I think there are some more coming in! Hey guys ...." and I scanned over, and nearly dropped my binos! Holy smokes, here came a stream! And then, a little river! And then they were covering half the sky. Not in thick numbers, mind you, like broadies can do; they were spread out a bit more thinly, but still sufficient to cause a good case of "hawk neck" for us. And they kept coming, for the next 15 minutes! By the time that flight and all its little eddies and twists finished up, we racked up nearly 3,000 Swainson's! That flight reset the personal best records for number of Swainson's seen at once for everyone at watch today, including our most experienced birder on hand, our counter, Glenn! Wow! At a neat sidebar: one of those Swainson's was a gorgeous chocolate dark morph! (All right, all right, quit laughing! I did NOT name that one myself; I'll have you know I took that morph label right out of Brian Wheeler's talk the other night ... really! But what more perfect morph to appear overhead at Hazel Bazemore than a .... ahem .... chocolate morph!! See! TOLD ya the stuff works, ha!).

Okay, Hazel is set for tomorrow, so all you locals reading this note, come out and help Glenn's poor roasted eyes bring the rest of them in. You will be rewarded, especially if you get there around 9 am. We stayed late at watch today, and as we left the park, a group of broadies that we hadn't even counted yet suddenly warped out of the clear blue and set down in the park and in Wood River west of the watch site. So there should be a little liftoff tomorrow morning to reward those souls willing to hit the hill.

I was really glad to be on hand to see those hawks today, especially since I hadn't planned on it. My colleagues and I ate lunch at the lab today, and as we came back up front to the offices, we noticed the skies were really clearing out and looking gorgeous. Two of us went out on the stoop and looked around at the clearing sky, and I explained to one of my colleagues who's interested in the migration that if anything was going to move from waiting out those storms for the last four days, they'd move today, and most likely, tomorrow. Well, no sooner were those words out of my mouth when I saw this little speck in the sky, naked eye. See, my research lab offices are right on the intercoastal ship channel in Port Aransas, which is on the northern tip of the barrier island of Mustang Island, adjacent to the central Texas coast. Kind of similar conditions to Smith Point. Sort of. Insofar as we both have Gulf waters at hand. Well, I ran to the car, got my binos out and found that speck was a broadwing hawk, headed our way! I saw something behind it, and discovered a little kettle of six sharp-shinned hawks grabbing a little thermal before sailing out to continue southward. I couldn't believe it! I told my colleague I'd "be along in a few minutes ...." and those few minutes stretched to include another dozen sharpies! Now they're coming by at the rate of one every minute or two. Oh boy. I was in deep trouble now! Well, long story short; I stayed out for thirty minutes, logged in 1 broadie, 42 sharpies, 1 Cooper's, 2 N. harriers and 1 unid'd falcon. I then realized "what the heck am I doing HERE!! when the watch is probably getting buried!" and immediately raced inside, found my supervisor, threw a vacation leave request in his direction and flew back outside with my bag and binos flapping over my shoulder!

I immediately hit the ferry, logged in a few more hawks while waiting for it to leave (to the great amusement of the rest of the ferry passengers, watching this crazy woman bouncing up and down on the hood of her car, cheering at something no one else could see in the sky ... must've been a sight!). I approached the huge Harbor Bridge going into Corpus Christi on the highway, and found myself literally underneath six groups of white pelicans lazily kettling and streaming their way southward. At 60 mph, my estimates ran to about 950 pelicans. Raced up the interstate, headed to Hazel and passed a white-tailed (black-shouldered) kite winging its way from a food run at some insect, then passed one of our local Harris's hawks at it's favorite perch, the McKenzie Road signage at the interstate. Hit the watch to find myself in the middle of another stream of broadies coming through. When the dust and the broadies cleared, got a call on my cell phone from a south Corpus Christi/Oso Bay observer who was logging in even more hawks at his home, in an area that normally doesn't get much traffic at all without such weather system aftermaths to help. That south Corpus home watch ran from 3-5pm cdt and logged in 28 broadies, 1 Swainson's, 20 sharpies, 3 Cooper's, 27 kestrels, 3 unk raptors and 1 peregrine falcon! Not bad for a house list!

Okay, south Texas, who else saw what?

Species                 Today   (Season-to-date)
Black Vultures          4       (57)
Turkey Vultures         3       (8)
Osprey                  22      (157)
Swallow-tailed Kite     0       (6)
Mississippi Kite        13      (3581)
No. Harrier             32      (125)
Sharp-shinned Hawk      221     (838)
Cooper's Hawk           35      (145)
Harris's Hawk           0       (4)
Red-shouldered Hawk     0       (33)
Broad-winged Hawk       4105    (902938) (NOTE: 1 dm on 9-27)
Swainson's Hawk         2980    (3213) (NOTE: 1 dm on 10-3, 1 choc morph 10-7)
White-tailed Hawk       0       (3)
Red-tailed Hawk         9       (93)
Am. Kestrel             143     (369)
Merlin                  2       (25)
Peregrine Falcon        16      (139)
Prairie Falcon          0       (2)
Unidentified Accip      99      (224)
Unidentified Buteo      0       (16)
Unidentified Falcon     5       (27)
Unidentified Raptor     29      (151)
Today's total:          7718    (912155)

Glenn's Day Birds: nope, not today! His computer went on strike; will run it on the web page archives report instead. Lots of wood storks, hundreds of anhingas, some white pelicans, all overhead and headed south.

Most of the area hummingbirds took out after the storms cleared; only 20-30 at Glenn and Joel's this morning. Vicki and Joel did report one broadtailed hummingbird this morning, though; nice!

Port Aransas: logged in one juvenile Eastern phoebe at my Texas A&M research lab. Scissortailed flycatchers were all over the fields across from my lab, far as the eye could see, resting in the mesquite and other brush.

Glenn's day birds now in:

Here is my list from 10/7.

AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN 72
DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT 3
ANHINGA    287
GREAT BLUE HERON  1
GREAT EGRET   1
WHITE-FACED IBIS   4
ROSEATE SPOONBILL  8
WOOD STORK   79
NORTHERN PINTAIL   30
BLACK VULTURE   4
TURKEY VULTURE   3
OSPREY    10
WHITE-TAILED KITE  1
MISSISSIPPI KITE   2
NORTHERN HARRIER  7
SHARP-SHINNED HAWK  98
COOPER'S HAWK   7
RED-SHOULDERED HAWK  3
BROAD-WINGED HAWK  2100
SWAINSON'S HAWK  1275
WHITE-TAILED HAWK  1
RED-TAILED HAWK   3
AMERICAN KESTREL  47
MERLIN    1
PEREGRINE FALCON  4
GREATER YELLOWLEGS  1
LAUGHING GULL   2
MOURNING DOVE   2
INCA DOVE    7
COMMON GROUND-DOVE  1
CHIMNEY SWIFT   3
BELTED KINGFISHER  1
GOLDEN-FR WOODPECKER 2
COUCH'S KINGBIRD   1
SCISSOR-TAILED FLYCATCHER 15
PURPLE MARTIN   1
BARN SWALLOW   8
CAROLINA WREN   1
BLUE-GRAY GNATCATCHER 11
GRAY CATBIRD   1
NORTHERN MOCKINGBIRD  3
WHITE-EYED VIREO  1
OLIVE SPARROW   1
GREAT-TAILED GRACKLE  11
Total sp.    44
 

Glenn Swartz
Audubon Outdoor Club Database Compiler
gswartz@electrotex.com