Excerpts from daily logs:

Monday, September 25, 2000: As hoped, the front came through and cooled us off (and dried us out, too, once the rains quit) ... and as expected, it was a regular day. Good day compared to the past pre-frontal days, but not the mega days yet to come ... backed up broadwinged hawks usually come through at least one to two days after the frontal passages. Note the accipiters ... fronts don't bother them a whit. Likewise the falcons ... they were queuing up behind that front and barreled on through today.

In the meantime .... and just for the record but not part of our official count ... Thom Benedict (HWI education director for the Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch) reported several thousand broadies, kites and kestrels lifting off this morning around 10:00am local time from another site just a few miles east of where the setdown took place tonight. Yup, fall's in the air down here, finally, and so are the hawks.

Tuesday promises to be good. Jo C notes some broadies were falling out of the sky at dusk into the trees of a nearby preserve north and east of the watch site ... should be a liftoff of some sort tomorrow morning, for anyone wanting to play hooky.

Anticipating good broadies and Swainson's flights to come this week. Looking northward, Kirk Moulton's SE Pennsylvania Transect sites racked up 21,000+ broadies from Friday through today ... very nice, Kirk and crews!! You're holding up your end of the watch quite well. <laugh!> Jane Stein's Massachusetts crew racked up a huge 1700 broadies today for their watch, their second biggest count day of the season; congratulations, Jane! Now we know where Kirk's hawks are coming from! (Sorry, Kirk, you knew I wasn't going to pass that opportunity up!) Virginia seemed to be pretty much rained out today. Holy smokes! Jeff Schultz posted 38,000+ broadies today from the Southeastern Michigan Raptor Research! And an incredible 934 sharpies! We'll also mention their four Swainson's (one dark) and one golden eagle (which cruised by close enough to count nose hairs on counters and eagle alike). Holiday Beach brought in another 6000+ broadies; good show! Another 2600+ from New York's Chestnut Ridge. Even Stone Mountain, Pennsylvania logged in around 300, its peak day for broadies; good deal. Man, the hawks are just flat late this year, aren't they?

Oh, oh ... you'll love this ... I just read off those above numbers to Bill while prepping this report, and he immediately jumped up and hustled into the kitchen and broke out some chocolate! We're talking serious mojo here ... he broke out the Snickers bites! We're getting an early start on our offerings to the chocolate hawk gods down here. Okay, so Kirk thinks we'll be getting megas down here around Oct 4-5 ... mmmm, let's see, still chomping chocolate, I'll say around Oct 2-3. Anybody get a look at the broadies flight plans yet? Guess we'll have to wait and see. By the by, Joel opened the western remote sites for our watch this weekend. It'll run through next Sunday. Numbers are still being tabulated; Joel says prelims are 5 for the first day (Saturday) and 4700 for Sunday; should have the breakouts by next report. We'll be monitoring the migration westward about 15 miles out from our main site at the Westlake site (formerly site #4, from last fall's watch), as well as at the main Hazel site, should those bad boy broadies decide to take the not-so-scenic route around.

Tuesday, September 26, 2000: After such a nice frontal passage the other day, when the front passed through, so apparently did all the clouds. Blue empty sky today; killer on the eyes. But, a pretty good set down was observed around 6:30pm (Texas local time); the watch lasted to 7:00pm due to flights. Should have a lift off tomorrow of some sort, westerly angled.

Beth reports other migrants included wood storks, anhingas, white pelicans. 3 or 4 lark sparrows near the site gave viewers good looks at those wonderful facial mask patterns. Other day birds: western kingbird and stilt sandpiper at pond.

Butterflies included monarchs, pipevine swallowtail.

The best bird of the day: Beth says that award goes to a local juvenile red tail that apparently couldn't stand it any longer and took a swoop at a fully-feathered owl we've rigged at the main watch site for grins. What a hoot! (okay, okay, I hear ya!)  Beth reports the red-tail hung out on a telephone pole nearby for quite a while, keeping close tabs on that owl.

Wednesday, September 27, 2000: At Hazel main, the feathered and stuffed owl (courtesy of Walmart's Halloween department and $13 bucks) baited the local immature red tail once more today. Yesterday, it took a dive at it ... shooting across the watch site, three feet over the canopies to get to it. Today, it came back around and just watched from a nearby low utility pole ... think it's getting the idea the owl isn't quite "right" ... quite a hoot to observe, though. We're discussing ways to animate the owl ...

The first 9000 broadies at Hazel main came in the morning, first thing. Then, as watch regular hours drew to a close, more broadies and other raptors started coming through, many setting down in the nearby brushy areas south and west of the site. We anticipate a liftoff again Thursday morning.