Hello from The Hill!

Miss Kite 2111
Northern Harrier 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 3
Broadwinged Hawk 3
Swainson's Hawk 10
Red-tailed Hawk 1
American Kestrel 1
Unk. Buteo 8
Unk. Raptor 1
Totals 2141

Yes folks, you're seeing the numbers right ... we finally had decent numbers of hawks today. Talk about Labor Day ... the counters really labored for these babies under our continuing drought conditions. Counters worked today under heat haze, full sun and few clouds. Max temps peaked at 107-degrees F, an all-time record high for the Corpus Christi area (breaking the previous high of 106-degree F in 1998). In case you're wondering, at local humidity, that worked out to a heat index of about 129-degree F at peak. Counter Jo Creglow noted at day's end, "I'm one tired puppy!" (this said after she not only spent a full day in the oven-hot environment of the hawk watch, but then opted for a few more hours of mulching, trimming and cleaning brush and trees until dark at the local main city park that our local birding club maintains. Woman of steel!). Tomorrow promises more of the same ... lots of water and shade, folks, and as little running around as possible.

Other notables:
Pipevine swallowtail butterfly
Acadian flycatcher
Wilson's warbler (male and female)

Overheard today at watch: "I have a new respect for clouds after counting and seeing birds on a blue sky with a very few occasional wisps."

We couldn't agree more.

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Fall 2000 hawk watch crew: watch coordinator, Joel Simon (email: jsimon@electrotex.com); counters Jo Creglow, Scott Rush, Beth Hahn; and education director Thom Benedict.
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The Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch appreciates the many volunteers and supporters that have helped bring the watch into the forefront of migration studies. Thanks to Electrotex, Inc. for sponsoring our web site; Hawk Watch International for their on-going support and sponsorship of the watch efforts. Also to the Northwest Business Association, Central Power and Light, Nature's Bird Center, Margaret Cullinan Wray Charitable Trust, the Trull Foundation, and the Audubon Outdoor Club of Corpus Christi.
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Hazel Bazemore County Park is in western Nueces County, Texas, west of the central Gulf Coast city of Corpus Christi. To find it, take FM624 west from SH77 for about 1 mile to the road on the right with a park sign marking it (past a Dollar Store and cancer treatment center, on the right). The park road is just on the west side of the water canal that crosses FM624. Across the street is a car wash. Turn north and take the park road; go one half mile to the park entrance gate. To reach the fall hawk watching spot, take the park entrance, make a left as soon as you get across the speed bump, and follow the winding road to the crest of the hill (past the restrooms, a covered picnic pavilion and around the next bend). Where the road makes a bend to the left, start looking for a place to park. Watch times: 8:30am-5:00pm, Texas time.
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Cheers from your roving hawk watch reporter,
Patty Beasley, Corpus Christi, TX
Email: pbeasley@electrotex.com
Web: http://www.electrotex.com/aoc/