Hazel Bazemore Hawk Watch

Corpus Christi, Texas (Nueces County)

All reports are posted daily to the following newsgroups: 
BirdHawk, TexBirds, BirdChat, TexasBirdChat
   

So, just how do we count all those hawks!?
 

August 15, 2005:

Can you see me jumping up and down?! We're baaaaackkk!! I just love the first day of watch! There's something about it ... you know, like seeing that brightly wrapped package under the Christmas tree. Knowing it was going to be there. Seeing the day come closer and closer when you could actually get your hands on it, and then getting the word to let 'er rip! Well, the word is given! Let 'er rip, folks! It's hawk watch season again!

Hazel Bazemore hawk watchers rang in the first day's watch right on time, and they even racked up a few hawks for their efforts! Welcome to all the regulars who faithfully showed up on the hill to help ring in the 2005 fall season! The chocolate was flowing today, and I do mean flowing! Corpus Christi tied the 1999 record high of 98 degrees today ... yep, the watch is off to a hot start in more ways than one! <grin!> Lots of cumies and nimbo-cumies floated around and scattered thunderstorms dropped rain and shot lightening here and there throughout the Coastal Bend (including a nice deluge with some righteous lightening right at noon on the coast in Port Aransas at my lab). Despite the show, Joel reports no rain falling on the watch site today. 

The line up for the fall season is another good one with 2004 veteran Hazel hawk watcher Dane Ferrell back on the hill to take the helm. With the million-hawk season under his belt, Dane is in fine form to help train and break in new counters to the Hazel Bazemore Way Of The Hawk (sounds like a martial art, doesn't it? <grin!>). Brian Bielfelt of Florida State University joins the team on the hill with some prior watch experience under his belt. Later on this month, Tara Conkling will log in as educator for the watch once her current project ends in Kansas. Joel Simon is on hand lending his vast expertise and and training to the team, joined by wife Vicki, our very own watch mom, to round out the team. The gang's definitely all here!

Joel says that Brian got almost as many lifers today as the watch got hawks! A good start on both counts, I'd say!  

Here's the count for today's sightings:
osprey 1
red-tailed hawk 1
unknown buteo 1
Total 3

August 16, 2005:

Joel's got the report for Tuesday. Pardons for the tardiness. We found out my email server's ever-vigilant spam blockers apparently thought Joel's report was a sales pitch of some kind and tucked it in the uh-uh box. We're up and going now, and if there's a pitch, it's probably for chocolate, but that should never be considered spam, right? <grin!> Joel, take it away! ....

The heat index for today reached 107 but thanks to the clouds and steady breezes it was tolerable. The count was low but we had some great hawks. We watched as our local White-tailed Hawk pair did battle with an interloping adult and then escorted it out of their territory. Later the same pair soared up to investigate an unusual dark hawk, they dive-bombed it and after a 10 full minute tussle finally drove it away. This adult Harlan's Hawk was a real treat. But the best look of the day was a low dark morph Swainson's....just outstanding.

The best dickie birds were about a hundred Uplands coming over in small groups.

Red-tailed Hawk- 3
Swainson' Hawk-4
Harris' Hawk - 2
White-tailed Hawk- 1
Unidentified Raptor- 1
Total- 11

Thanks, Joel! The diversity of Hazel Bazemore County Park is one of the boons to this watch. There's always something to look at, regardless of how many raptors are in the air. It's also a consistent spot to catch the resident families of groove-billed anis, green jays and other south Texas specialties.

August 17, 2005:

Dane Ferrell's back on the hill with us once again this fall, and boy, are we thrilled to have his expertise at hand once again! Here's a quick rundown of today's sightings:

Swainson's Hawk - 5
Red-shouldered Hawk - 3
Swallow-tailed Kite - 2
Crested Caracara - 1
Total = 11

Quantity low - Quality High!

Thanks, Dane! Quality, indeed! The swallow-tailed kites have been moving around Liberty, and it's just a matter of time before Hazel and Smith Point both start seeing flights. Sounds like another good season, so hopefully some good opportunities to catch those unique kites en route!

August 18, 2005:

Joel's report:
Swainson's Hawk- 8
Mississippi Kite- 1
Swallow-tailed Kite 6 (all together and up very high)
Osprey- 1
Harris' Hawk 1
White-tailed Hawk- 1
Total - 18

August 19, 2005:

Joel's report:
Swainson's Hawk- 4
Unidentified Buteo- 1
Total - 5

August 20, 2005: 

Joel's report:
Swainson's Hawk- 8
Unidentified Buteo- 2
Mississippi Kite- 8
Total- 18

August 21, 2005:

Joel's report:
By far the best day yet! We added the first of season Broad-wing Hawk and Cooper's Hawk. This season for the first time we are attempting to age Mississippi Kites to obtain a better understanding of their migration pattern. Our goal to age at least 10%, today we were able to age 15 out of 21....off to a good start.
The bird of the day was a low overhead look of a Swallow-tailed Kite. Killer look.....great photo op.....no camera. There were several groups of Anhingas for us to practice counting techniques.

Broad-winged Hawk- 5
Swainson's Hawk- 8
Unidentified Buteo- 3
Mississippi Kite- 21
Swallow-tailed Kite- 4
Cooper's Hawk- 2
Osprey- 1
White-tailed Hawk- 1
Total- 45

August 22, 2005:

Dane's report:
What a day ...

Mississippi Kites = 3255
Swainson's Hawks = 20
Swallow-tailed Kites = 11
Broad-winged Hawks= 9
Cooper's Hawks = 3
Red-tailed Hawks = 2
White-tailed Hawks = 1 ( juvie )
Northern Harrier = 1
Unidentified Falcon = 1 ( large )
Unidentified Buteo = 1
Total = 3304

August 23, 2005:

Brian's report:
Slow day today at the site. Our "peak" of the day was
from about 12:30-2:15. There were very few birds that
were not seen between those times. Still good, for
early in the season, but the day didn't live up to
yesterday's 3,300 birds.

Broad-wing: 13
Swany: 7
Miss Kite: 486
Cooper's: 1
Large Falcon: 1
Total 508

August 24, 2005:

Brian's report:

Broad-wing: 14
Miss K.: 404
Harris's: 1--adult
White-tail: 1--sub-adult
Swallow Kite: 1 juv.

Total 421

Thanks, Brian! Those swallow-tailed kites are so great to see at Hazel. The population appears to have had good hatch-survival cycles over the past few years and it's really showing in the fall migrations!

Also, the information for this fall's "Celebration of Flight" is also up on line. See you on the hill!

August 25, 2005:

Brian's report:

For the past few days, mornings have had no birds, late morning had a few birds, 12-2:30 had large numbers of Mississippi Kites, and afternoons had a few birds. The weather pattern has also been the similar on these days, blue skies in the morning and later afternoon, with some clouds in the middle of the day. We thought today would be the same, but we were wrong. The morning had blue skies and no birds, however, we had a 5 minute sprinkle on the site around 11:30. After we had a couple kettles of Mississippi Kites come through. It was great, many of the birds were low and overhead, including some Swallow-tailed Kites. The skies cleared in the afternoon, and the birds died down. Thinking there would not be many birds again this afternoon, Joel went home, leaving Dane, Jimmy Swartz and I to deal with the afternoon lull. Around 3:30pm, our lull was broken by a kettle of 550+ Mississippi Kites that come out from the horizon to kettle right about our heads. Again we had several low Swallow-tailed Kites. We still had a few birds coming through when we left at 5:30pm. It was a very exciting day overall.

Results:
Broad-winged: 12
Red-tailed: 1
Swany: 8
Unidentified Buteo: 1
Miss K.: 875
Swallow Kite: 17
Cooper's 1
Osprey: 1
Harrier: 1

Total: 917

Thanks, Brian! Great counts all around! The Mississippis are coming through in good numbers and weather patterns promise a good upcoming weekend of flights and sights!

August 26, 2005:

Brian's report:

Today was very hot with no birds in the morning. The birds picked up in the afternoon, but a majority were very, very high.

Broad-winged: 11
Swainy: 2
Unidentified Buteo: 2
Miss Kite: 171
Swallow Kite: 5
Cooper's: 1
Unidentified Accip: 1

Total 193

Today we had a large flock of Yellow-warblers near the site, plus a Dickcissil and Eastern Kingbird. We also heard a Chat from the site, plus we had Am. White Pelicans flyover.

Thanks, Brian! Hazel gets such a great variety of dicky (other than raptor) birds during fall migration that those counts are almost as exciting! Did we tell you that Brian even got a couple lifers on his first day on duty at the watch, just from the "regulars"? Pretty cool place! Heat indices are brutal around here these days; bring lots of water with you.

August 27, 2005:

Brian's report:

Another hot one today.

Broad-winged: 41
Swany: 8
Red-shouldered: 1
Miss Kite: 1405
Swallow Kite: 9
Cooper's: 4
Peregrine: 1
Opsrey: 1

Total 1470

August 28, 2005:

Joel's report:

Broad-winged: 2
Swainson's: 4
Miss Kite: 850
Sharp-shinned hawk: 1
White-tailed kite: 1
Total 858

Thanks, Joel! Joel notes this day's watch was one of the hardest for the numbers that he's worked in a long time. Other than a few kettles here and there of 30 or so Mississippi kites per flight, Joel says it was a day of nibbles and dribbles. Still and all, a grand total of 850 isn't too shabby for having to work hard for every one! The season's first sharpie winged over, as well as the first white-tailed kite. We're all waiting to see what effect Hurricane Katrina's massive winds and rains will have on migration over the next week or so. Our collective thoughts and prayers are with everyone in her path.

August 29, 2005:

Brian's report:

Rain delayed our start today by 1/2 an hour. Most of our birds came in before 1pm, which was very different from last week. Still good numbers of Mississippi Kites, but the kettles today were small.

Broad-winged: 9
Swainy: 3
Miss Kite: 342
Osprey: 1

Total 355

Other birds
Baltimore Oriole, seen from the site
Acadian Flycather, several down the road, one calling
Black-throated Green Warbler, same area as flycatcher
Yellow Warbler, numerous
Wilson's Warbler, at the site
Dickcissel, down the road
Green Kingfisher
Greater Yellowlegs, at the pond
Upland Sandpiper, still passing overhead
Yellow-breasted Chat, several seen down the road

Thanks, Brian! What a great list of dickie birds! Migration has been underway here for a bit but you know how that goes around here. Throw a little rain into the mix and stand back, the birds will really start popping out! We even had a yellow chat at our house this morning!

August 30, 2005:

Brian's report:

Today was a great day. We had birds flying every hour today, except between the 7:30 and 8:00. Very hot
day, 102*F in the shade. We had great numbers, many were very high. We had a dozen birds or so lift off
this morning from the park and surrounding areas.

Broad-winged Hawk: 6
Swainson's Hawk: 7
Mississippi Kite: 1306
Peregrine Falcon: 1
Cooper's Hawk: 2
Osprey: 3
White-tailed Hawk: 1
Caracara: 1

Total 1327

Dikie birds

White Pelican's lifted off beyond Polly Ponds
Nashville Warbler near the pond
Olive-sided Flycatcher
Groove-billed Ani (3)
Scissor-tailed Flycatchers all around the site

Baltimore Oriole, Eastern Kingbird, and many of the birds already reported have been hanging around.

Thanks, Brian!

August 31, 2005:

Dane's report:

Osprey: 2
Mississippi Kite: 149
Broad-winged Hawk: 19
Swainson's Hawk: 3
Red-tailed Hawk: 1
Cooper's Hawk: 1
American Kestrel: 1
Unk. Raptor: 7
Total 183

Dane also reports some nice dickie birds at the park, including American avocet, roseate spoonbills and a northern waterthrush. A 65,000-footer rolled past the western end of the county (and seemingly over the park) but apparently didn't thwart migrants in the least. Port Aransas at least got a very welcome respite from some of its rain from the three-digit heat wave in progress all over south Texas this week. Keep that chocolate chilled!
    

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