Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch, Fall 1999
Date:   09-15-99

Greetings all:

Holy smokes! All right, everyone find a seat, today's watch is a doozy! Anyone within fifty miles of Hazel Bazemore County Park, Texas, USA .... get to the watch site tomorrow morning ... there's gonna be one heckuva liftoff!!

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9 ..... Osprey
1 ..... Swallow-tailed Kite
138 ... Mississippi Kite
4 ..... Northern Harrier
8 ..... Sharp-shinned Hawk
9 ..... Cooper's Hawk
22,528  Broad-winged Hawk
2 ..... American Kestrel
3 ..... Peregrine Falcon
4 ..... Prairie Falcon (ohhh, I can hear it already! YES, they were prairie's!)
1 ..... Caracara
4 ..... Unidentified Accipiter
3 ..... Unidentified Raptor

Total (are you ready?) = 22,714

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Hoooo-eeeeeee! <insert "happy dance" here!> .... not sure how many of these were from the Duluth bunch this past weekend and earlier; but these guys joined up from somewhere!

Joel says the swallow-tailed kite soared through at 10:20am cdt; nice and low and adding a life bird to several observers' lists. The prairie falcons were not only in excellent numbers today, but Joel says the first three came through all together in a little mini-kettle of their own at 4:05pm cdt. The trio stayed over the watch site for several revolutions, circling and soaring very low and close in; excellent lengthy views for all. The fourth one came by twenty minutes later, and also offered very good looks. Joel says the broadwings, on the other hand, waited til nearly the end of watch before making an appearance. But once they did, boy, howdy, keep your heads down, cause here they came. And came. And came! Joel says the largest kettle was about 5,600 strong. The streams started at the 4:00pm hour with 7,500 broadwings. By the time that stream finished up, and Joel and the gang rubbed their eyes clear, the broadwings settled down and got downright serious! The streams and kettles started up again, by thousands at a time, and half an hour later, another 15,400 broadwings made their way across the skies. At least, that was where Joel says he had to cut off the count. At that point, the broadies started doubling back and mixing up, so even though others were still coming in, Joel says he just stopped the count. By six pm, broadwings started falling out of the sky and crashing into area trees for an overnight rest and roost.

Funny side note: Joel also reported some rain in the early afternoon at the watch. Not as bad as yesterday, as they were able to hide out in the shadow of the rear hatch of his van. While they waited out the rain coming down from the east, observers gazed westward, and noted the skies were perfectly clear! And wouldn't you know it, here came some broadwings, headed out through the western skies! Joel says they racked up about 2,000 more of the broadwings while counting huddled in the van in the rain.

The liftoff should be very nice tomorrow morning!!

Cheers,
Patty Beasley
Joel Simon
Fernando Ramos
Ryan Wagner
and the rest of the HBHW cast and crew