Coastal Bend Hawk Watch, Fall 1999
Hazel Bazemore County Park + 3
Date: 09-27-99
Hi everyone,
NOW we're starting to have some fun! And some achy muscles, but that's okay; that's part of the fun! This is a strange migration; real Twilight Zone stuff, but if the radar's right, we may be overrun tomorrow. Joel checked it mid afternoon, and said he saw more incoming activity than he's ever seen in a nexrad screen. If the nexrad's right, the broadies are still a little north of us and should be coming in sometime tomorrow morning/early afternoon. Let's hope so; the rest of those broadies have to be SOMEWHERE, and we've got a pretty strong front headed our way for arrival tomorrow night and Wednesday morning that will likely shut things down again for awhile, until the weather clears again.
Site #2 of our satellite sites was closed down early as there were no eastern flights overhead there (but Marty Cripp and Jimmy Jackson came over to #4 and were a tremendous help; thanks, guys!). Site #3 had a respectable showing for a few hours, and site #4 was overrun with broadies for a four hour period. The idea to run this temporary satellite site experiment was perfectly timed; that's exactly what's been happening with the migration this fall. Serendipitous luck, yes, but good timing for an idea that's been kicking around for a few years. Kudos to Joel and HWI for going for it this year. Here's today's tallies:
Tonight's posting is in the temporary format. Hazel is site #1; the satellite sites are: #2: an old landfill dome east of the main Hazel Bazemore watch site; Sites #3 and #4 were west of Hazel Bazemore by 5.5 miles and 13.2 miles, respectively. Due to no action; site #2 was shut down today.
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HB.....#2......#3......#4....... Site name
...............,................ Black Vulture
2..............3................ Turkey Vulture
................................ Swallow-tailed Kites
4..............1.......4........ Osprey
1..............2................ Mississippi Kite
................................ Bald Eagle
...............3.......1........ Northern Harrier
26.............4.......9........ Sharp-shinned Hawk
15.............3.......1........ Cooper's Hawk
................................ Harris's Hawk
...............1.......1........ Red-shouldered Hawk
67.............24634...121002... Broad-winged Hawk (#4: 11 dark morphs)
7..............10......7........ Swainson's Hawk
................................ Ferruginous Hawk
2............................... White-tailed Hawk
................................ Zone-tailed Hawk
2......................7........ Red-tailed Hawk
................................ Crested Caracara
3..............4.......4........ American Kestrel
1............................... Merlin
20.....................3........ Peregrine Falcon
1............................... Prairie Falcon
................................ Aplomado Falcon
2..............6.......4........ Unidentified Accipiter
.......................1........ Unidentified Buteo
...............1................ Unidentified Falcon
6..............3.......5........ Unidentified Raptor
159....0.......24675...121048....Totals
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Poor Joel, his fingernails must be down to nubs by now. Hazel's main watch site had one of the slowest days ever recorded for this time of year. It does work out that way some years, but the most valuable information we're already gathering is the knowledge that the hawks that go more westerly when the weather and events combine to push them that way, can be monitored from not so far away as we feared. This year, at least, LOL! We'll see what happens next year!
Site #4's flights ran from 11am to 3pm for the largest concentration; (11am-12n: 95,980; 12n-1pm: 531; 1pm-2pm: 9468; and 2pm-3pm: 14,676). Site #3's flights were in approximately the same first two hours of that period. And, even more importantly, we know what the flight triggers were for today. Every time we tried to break to eat an early lunch (as the 11am hour rolled over, we'd only had about 300 raptors in all). Every time food was mentioned, BAM!, here came the raptors. We'd count, then I'd say, okay, let's try to eat now, and BAM! here came some more! Okay, NOW we're going to eat lunch. BAM! Here came some more! We finally got the message after the 25-minute long horizon to horizon river of 94,800 raptors passed over; we gave up trying to take a formal lunch break. Yep, we did have chocolate on site, too, but today I guess it was the mention of a lunch break that brought them in <grin!>. Some of us never did get to finish our lunches!
At site #4 we once again had tremendous help and support by lots of visitors and counter helpers. What a font of talent and experience to tap! It's so much fun getting to put faces to names of email messages; and to meet folks from so many other hawk watches (welcome today to Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson from Soddy Mountain Hawk Watch, Tennessee)! We surely do appreciate the efforts you all make to get here (and THANK GOODNESS WE HAD SOME DECENT HAWK NUMBERS TODAY to show for it all, LOL!). In between hawks, though; we still have fun thanks to our local entertainment section ... the local raptors and other birds.
Groove-billed anis were really cooperative this morning; six of a local family group put in an appearance at site #4. Anyone walking by the #4 satellite watch site today would have been wondering just what the heck was so fascinating about the Port-A-Potty we all appeared to be exclaiming over and inspecting in minute detail. Nope, just the anis moving around behind the potty! Visitor Jerry Daniel spotted up the anis at site #4, by the way, after a number of us glanced over when the first ani appeared, and passed it off as just another of those darn great-tailed grackles hanging around. Jerry had the presence of mind to actually check the bird out <grin!>, and enabled several folks, including John Lena, to add the ani to their life list, with excellent views through the scopes.
Green jays put in an appearance at Hazel Bazemore and at site #4 (heard them yesterday but today they lost their shyness and came out for some good looks and life-list ticks for some of our visitors). Verdin sang on the site #4 property, sending several of us rocketing out of our seats to try to see it faster than for some of the hawk alerts! (We never were fast enough to catch a glimpse, unfortunately ... but wait until tomorrow!).
And thanks also to Barry and Rita Freed of New York City; Barry counted his first kettle today and proceeded to spot quite a few more incoming groups.
One visitor commented at one point during the 11am-3pm flood of broadwings that he'd just seen more hawks in one stretch today than he'd seen in three years at his regular hawk watch site. What fun! I thought it was also an interesting commentary on the contrast between sites, as all sites have great value and their own specialties.
Let's see, hawk stories from site #4 .... a sharpie made a run at a blackbird today, to our great amusement (the blackbird put the moves on the sharpie and avoided the blue-plate special fate, this time!). And a peregrine went after a Swainson's while both were passing overhead. One good thump turned the Swainson's towards unoccupied air space. The peregrine didn't pursue; just wanted to make a point, I guess! TONS of vultures in the airspace today, but all 300+ appeared to be scrolling around with no intention of moving on quite yet.
Before I close tonight, too, I'd like to extend a special thank-you to Joyce Penny, Paul Miliotis, Phyllis Yochem, Harold Fetter and all the others who have been escorting hawk watch visitors around the county on their own to share the birding bounty with whomever wanted to go after already-long days at the watch. Attaways to all!
Get the clickers ready; tomorrow should be interesting!
- Cheers from Patty Beasley, Joel Simon, Fernando Ramos, Ryan Wagner, and the rest of the HBHW cast and crew!