Hello from The Hill!

It's Monday, September 18, 2000. Beth Hahn and Scott Rush supply the numbers today ... along with the rest of the crew on the hill.

Osprey 2
Miss kite 9
Northern harrier 3
Sharpshinned hawk 3
Cooper's hawk 4
Red-shouldered hawk 1
Broadwinged hawk 22,352
Swainson's hawk 1
American kestrel 2
Unid Accipiter 3
Unid Buteo 4
Unid Raptor 9

TOTAL 22,393

Not too shabby! A really nice group of around 17,000 came through the site after a slow liftoff (only a few thousand at site) ... it's really nice to have an impressive mega-kettle lazily scroll across the sky when we have visitors. Long-time local birding guide Ray Little was on site, leading an Elderhostel group for the University of Texas Marine Science Institute, when the huge flight came up out of the east around mid-morning. Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch education director Thom Benedict was also on hand to assist the group. After the last of those hawks finally passed by and everyone was catching their breath and getting blood back into arms and necks ... a single broadwing rose upward very close to the site. Nice looks while it traced arcs in the sky, scoping out the best thermal wannabes in the warming air. Shortly afterward, a sharp-shinned hawk streaked through the watch site ... on the deck and gone before we could even get our binos up to track it. It must've been hiding in the nearby brush on the fringe of the site, watching all the excitement.

Okay, unofficial totals to date (off by 2 raptors ... will be corrected soon):

black vulture 5
turkey vulture 2
osprey 23
Miss kite 4,326
northern harrier 22
Sharp-shinned hawk 27
Cooper's hawk 29
Red-shouldered 21
Broadwinged hawk 132,991
Swainson's hawk 162
Red-tailed hawk 19
Harris's hawk 5
American kestrel 81
Merlin 8
Peregrine falcon 15
Caracara 1
Unid accipiter 20
Unid buteo 57
Unid falcon 10
Unid raptor 93

Totals to date for season: 137,917 (about on track for the season averages ... )

-----------------------------------
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. Plus a cast of many, many volunteers, whose help over the years is so gratefully appreciated!
-----------------------------------
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.
-----------------------------------
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.
-----------------------------------
Cheers from your roving hawk watch reporter,
Patty Beasley, Corpus Christi, TX
Email: pbeasley@electrotex.com
Web: http://www.electrotex.com/aoc/