Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch, Fall 1999
Date: 09-30-99
Hi everyone,
"HALLELUJAH!!" (picture this in 72-point type!)
Could you hear the gang from the hill today? Kirk Moulton from the SE Pennsylvania Transect must have heard the shouting. Kirk, you ol' prognosticator you, you're getting so good at this that it's starting to get scary! (Didn't we have this conversation last year, too, Kirk <grin!> ?!) Talk about timing; Kirk just knew the broadies were coming through today and called to check in with Joel on the hill via cell phone ... said "Joel, you should be seeing broadies!" .... and sure enough, there they came! And boy, did they ever come!
Just as we thought, a goodly portion of hawks were still backed up, waiting for clear air. Flights today ran into mega-kettles; here's the hour-by-hour broadwing play sheet from Joel's logs (rounded off counts):
1100-1200: 68,000 bwha
1200-1300: 22,000 bwha
1300-1400: 69,000 bwha
1400-1500: 21,600 bwha
1500-1600: 18,700 bwha
1600-1700: 19,300 bwha
1700-1800: 7,500 bwha
Three of the broadies were dark morphs from today's flights. Joel says the first two hours' worth were in clouds and relatively low, giving excellent views; the clouds soon blew out, though, and from 1300cdt forward, the skies were blue and the broadies were much higher and faster. Winds were mostly north-northeast throughout the day. Joel kept the watch open until 6pm Texas time tonight; probably safe to say there will be a liftoff tomorrow of some sort.
Twenty two visitors were on hand with twelve of our regular observers, to take part in the madness! Independent film producers Paul and Marla Varner have stuck it out all week, hoping for that one big flight with low, close hawks; today they shot every remaining film cannister they had with today's flights (they'd only shot one cannister in the past week, up to today). Michael Beath and Barbara Hannigan of Boston (Derby Hill HW) stayed one more day after changing airline flights and sticking it out even through yesterday's stormy weather, and were handsomely rewarded with one more mega-day of flights! Welcome also to the contingent from Hawk Mountain HW who were on site today; so glad you could be here for the flights!
As if the flood of broadies weren't enough, check out what else came through!! Joel's already on notice that this year that HE gets to write the report on the rough-legged hawk (John Economidy, I can hear you chortling already! ... John did the white paper on the 1997 RLHA, amidst the stunned disbelief reactions of that sighting, <grin!>. Ahhh, isn't vindication a sweet, sweet taste!). Add to the list another bald eagle (B2 this time, that came through early, at fairly low height, with a morning "liftoff" of 13 broadies) and a light morph immature ferruginous hawk that went through at 4:20pm cdt with a flight of broadies; you can just imagine how fried the guys all are tonight. Joel notes also that there may have been a golden eagle through, but no one got enough satisfaction on the sighting to call it; it went down as an unknown.
Another batch that Joel says didn't make it on the individual species list or on the count log at all today were eight more prairie falcons. Those eight prairies apparently weren't in a migrating mode and stayed local, so they didn't get on any count other than field notes for this report. Nice day bird for the park, in the meantime, until they move on! Four other prairies were migrating, and made the count.
Now, to put this day and this season in some perspective, today's watch logged in 17 species, bringing the season up to a total of 25 species seen, and that breaks the 1997 fall watch record of 24 species total for that season. At this time last season, when we were shattering our own records all over the terrain, we stood at 891,183 hawks. As of today, this fall watch at Hazel Bazemore proper has 605,697 hawks logged. If you add in the satellite sites, that brings the total for the Coastal Bend hawk watch to 846,503. However, we're anticipating a few more "big days" for the main Hazel Bazemore site that could continue tomorrow and through the weekend, as hawks are still moving around and heading southward again in good numbers, according to radar views and ground reports. To quote Joel once again: "It ain't over yet, folks!"
Okay, on to the numbers:
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0....... Black Vulture (YTD: 102)
24...... Turkey Vulture (YTD: 146)
25...... Osprey (YTD: 111)
0....... Swallow-tailed Kites (YTD: 30)
4....... White-tailed Kites (YTD: 4)
9....... Mississippi Kite (YTD: 5,500)
1....... Bald Eagle (YTD: 3) (8/29 Ad; 9-22 imm.; 9/30 B2)
35...... Northern Harrier (YTD: 84)
148..... Sharp-shinned Hawk (YTD: 532)
113..... Cooper's Hawk (YTD: 345)
0....... Harris's Hawk (YTD: 6)
0....... Red-shouldered Hawk (YTD: 18)
228693.. Broad-winged Hawk (YTD: 595,089) (9/21: 2DM; 9/24: 1DM; 9/30: 3DM)
28...... Swainson's Hawk (YTD: 121)
1....... Ferruginous Hawk (9/18: DM juv)(9/23 DM)(YTD: 5)
7....... Red-tailed Hawk (YTD: 73) (3 dark morph)
0....... White-tailed Hawk (YTD: 3)
0....... Zone-tailed Hawk (YTD: 3)
1....... Rough-legged Hawk (YTD: 1)
13...... American Kestrel (YTD: 105)
2....... Merlin (YTD: 19)
16...... Peregrine Falcon (YTD: 92)
4....... Prairie Falcon (YTD: 29)
0....... Aplomado Falcon (YTD: 1)
0....... Crested Caracara (YTD: 2)
30...... Unidentified Accipiter (YTD: 85)
0....... Unidentified Buteo (YTD: 24)
7....... Unidentified Falcon (YTD: 39)
2115.... Unidentified Raptor (YTD: 3,113)
HB Total: 231,276 (YTD: 605,697)
+ Three Satellite sites totals: 240,806 (incl. 1 BE and 11 BW-DM)
= Coastal Bend Hawk Watch grand total: 846,503
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- Cheers from Patty Beasley, Joel Simon, Fernando Ramos Rincon, Ryan Wagner, and the rest of the HBHW cast and crew!