News, Videos & Other Webcams > Birds in the News
Migration: Raptors / Fall
The Peregrine Chick:
Yesterday (Sept 30) in Whytewold (on Lake Winnipeg) a couple of very good birders hit the raptor migration jackpot. The hawk migration site at Windygates/Pembina Valley and St Adolphe sites are spring migration points, Whytewold is our only fall one. Whytewold used to post to the Hawkcount website, but my understanding is that you have to be organized and consistent in your reporting to Hawkcount and I think mostly Whytewold is now a small number of local birders who count on good "push" days.
Anywho, over a 6 hour period yesterday, they (2 very good birders) counted 1800+ raptors going by within sight - including 6 peregrines who could all be non-Project birds. Tundra birds are on the move (Island Girl from Baffin Island is in Missouri) and we know at least one of ours is about that far south as well. The Brandon birds have been concentrating their explorations out west at last report, we know where the WW girls are, the Radisson chicks are the oldest and likely already on the move. The HSC boys are the youngest and could be like the Brandon boys, staying closer to home with some day trips in the area. They are old enough to hunt for themselves so they could have ventured north along the river to the Lake, no real way to know of course, but it could be possible.
Here's their reported count:
Sharp-shinned Hawk 1453 Broad-winged Hawk 76 Turkey Vulture 56 Merlin & American Kestrel 55 Red-tailed Hawk 54 Bald Eagle 13 Coopers Hawk 11 Peregrine Falcon 6 Osprey 2 Golden Eagle 1 Northern Harrier 1
allikat:
I was on the site yesterday - and it looks like the Broad-Winged Hawk is the big mover right now.
The Peregrine Chick:
Looks like quite a number of HawkCount sites (www.hawkcount.org) are starting to show small numbers of peregrines moving, now whether they are local birds moving about or migration is always hard to say, but the counts of sightings at this sites are starting to climb. There are never huge numbers of peregrines (not like Turkey Vultures or Broad-winged Hawks) but consistent sightings of one or two birds is enough. Last spring, we had many of our birds back before there was any noticeable numbers at the migration sites, so lots of peregrines don't get close enough to be seen or are travelling after the "watches" close for the day.
Had a little look at Island Girl's transmitter data and it looks like she is expanding her movements up on Baffin Island which generally is a precursor to her starting her southern journey. Last year she was made a start about September 25th. Don't know what the weather is like/will be like, but she'll likely take off about the same time.
I'm going to see if I can find out if there are any public events at the hawkcount sites in the Manitoba this fall. If there are, will post a note on the "upcoming bird events" board in case anyone wants to attend. They usually have great birders there who will be happy to share their expertise on identifying raptors on the wing.
allikat:
ACK!!!! I just got used to them being here!
Now that summer has finally decided to show up, we have to start thinking of wishing our birds a safe farewell..........oh dear!
The Peregrine Chick:
Some hawk migration stations began opening up on August 1st ...
Mississippi Kites, Broad-winged Hawks and Turkey Vultures are usually the first birds to move in larger numbers
Corpus Christi, Texas
August 10th they opened their station & reported 31 birds
= 29 Mississippi Kites, 1 Broad-winged Hawk & 1 Peregrine
August 11th they reported 200 birds over the same period of the day & over the same length of time (6.5 hours from 0830 to 1500)
= 180 Mississippi Kites, 12 Swallow-tailed Kites, 1 Cooper's Hawk, 2 Broad-winged Hawk, 1 White-tailed Hawk, 1 Merlin & 1 Harris Hawk
Second Mountain, Pennsylvania
August 5th were open for 3 hours & reported 15 birds
= 13 Turkey Vultures, 2 Broad-winged Hawks
August 10th were open for 4 hours & report 31 birds
= 3 Black Vultures, 23 Turkey Vultures, 1 Red-shouldered Hawk, 2 Broad-winged Hawks & 2 Red-tailed Hawks
August 11th open 5 hours but experienced a wind shift midway through the day & reported 18 birds
= 3 Black Vultures, 8 Turkey Vultures, 1 Osprey & 6 Broad-winged Hawks
August 12th
= 3 Black Vultures, 6 Turkey Vultures, 1 Red-shouldered Hawk & 1 Red-tailed Hawk
Looks like there is some movement but we will have to see when the big numbers hit ...
Corpus Christi - Mississippi Kite peak was right at the end of August (20K), Broad-winged Hawk peaks in September (195K) and October (88K), Turkey Vultures move early but hit their peak late, in 2012 that was October (51K) as did Swainson's Hawks (20K). Peregrines - 7 in August, 199 in September, 106 in October and 4 in November.
Second Mountain - first wave was mid to late September, then mid-October with 4x as many peregrines passing through in October than in September
Veracruz, Mexico has the numbers that are staggering though ...
August 2012 = 97K Mississippi Kites + 23 other individual birds
September 2012 = 18K Turkey Vultures, 90K Mississippi Kites, 364K Broad-winged Hawks
October 2012 = 586K Turkey Vultures, 323 individual Mississippi Kites, 440K Broad-winged Hawks, 292K Swainson's Hawks, 95K unidentifiable raptors
November 2012 = 8K Turkey Vultures, 0 Mississippi Kites, 26 individual Broad-winged Hawks, 102 individual Swainson's Hawks
+ 203 individual Peregrines = 0 in August, 83 in September, 105 in October, 15 in November (260 in 2011, 160 in 2010, 167 in 2009, 146 in 2008)
+ there were only 56 Merlins all season but 1619 American Kestrels, that's 8x times the number of Peregrines
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version