Hello from The Hill! It's Saturday, September 23, 2000.

2 Osprey
74 Miss kite
1 Northern harrier
4 Swainson's hawk
1 Merlin
2 Unid Accipiter
1 Unid Buteo
TOTAL 85

Beth Hahn files today's report ... in anticipation of the first strong cold front of the fall (so the meteorologists are promising us), we hoped for a good flight day. Not to be, for numbers, but good species to watch go by ... as well as really nice looks at local male northern harriers. Despite great reports last night of several Swainson's flights in and around San Antonio ... the Swainson's proved elusive to scanning today. Beth says the watch did have a few healthy streams of MS kites, and also saw a few peregrines, though the counters decided against counting them--one headed east then north, another set the pond's killdeers to several minutes of frantic flying and raucous calling, another seemed too low. As Beth notes ... it may have even been just one bird. We all know how they sometimes love to toy with other wildlife for the heck of it. Other birds for the day: 3 Wood storks, 1 Anhinga. Butterflies: pipevine swallowtails. Other critters: a report of another sighting of the local cougar. Welcomes to the folks on the hill helping out the counters today! A special welcome to hawk watch Emeritus, John Economidy ... NOW it feels like the whole gang's almost come home to the hill this fall ... just a few more warm bodies to drag in ... <grin!>.

A totally off-topic aside ... Bill and I attended our first powwow today. Un-Be-Lievable!!! Go! Don't ask questions! Just go!, if you ever get the opportunity. Wow. Truly the communal experience of a lifetime. Not to mention we also got to hear a girl we're dubbing as the next Leann Rimes ... 12-years old with one of the most mature voices we've ever heard since Leann Rimes was first introduced. Stunning.

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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. Plus a cast of many, many volunteers, whose help over the years is so gratefully appreciated!
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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/