Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch, Fall 1999
Date:   09-17-99

Greetings all:

Sorry folks -- resending -- goofed up the date. This report is for 09-17-99; please delete the previous one:

Another zone-tail, and I missed it, again ... *whine!* ..... ONE of these days .... <grin!> ...

--------------------

East winds pushed the hawks to the west today, way west. Most of the kettles were scope jobs today. Luckily one nice kettle came right overhead while local newspaper birding columnist Phyllis Yochem was out.

The lowest and closest Peregrine was a highlight for most on the watch. The Zone-tailed Hawk just happened to go through the scope as a stream of broadies were being counted, not many got to see it.

1.......Osprey
72......Mississippi Kite
2.......Northern Harrier
8.......Sharp-shinned Hawk
3.......Cooper's Hawk
1.......Red-shouldered Hawk
27,860..Broad-winged Hawk
1.......Zone-tailed Hawk
2.......Red-tailed Hawk
5.......American Kestrel
2.......Peregrine Falcon
4.......Unidentified Accipiter
1.......Unidentified Buteo
2.......Unidentified Falcon

Total:  27,964

Joel

--------------------

O-KAY! We had an excellent day, but even more important, so did other watches. Here they come from the north! Congrats to Kirk and the gang at the Southeastern Michigan Raptor Research at Lake Erie for their 13,351 broadies on 9-16; no word on today's flight yet as of this post. And to Bob Pettit's group at Holiday Beach, Ontario; they racked up 19,834 broadies on 9-16; today they logged another 30,945 .. wow! (Thanks John and Betty for the tipoff!) Howard Shapiro reports High Park in Toronto recorded record highs today with their flights of 4802 Broad-winged Hawks and 877 Sharp-shinned Hawks today - the highest single day total for these species ever recorded at their site, he says. Excellent flight reports! We'll be waiting in Texas with open arms!

Armchair quarterbackers down here (including yours truly) concur with the prognosticators up north of us; we think the flights will peak a little on the early side this year at Hazel. Seems to be working out that way. So far. Nothing's in concrete, and weather can be all, as we know. So, let's be sure to get out to the watches and help bring them in!

Tomorrow should be good!

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