Migration: Raptors / Fall

[The Peregrine Chick]

Just has a look at the migration numbers at Veracruz's "River of Raptors" site ...

On August 30th there were 32,009 Mississippi Kites counted by 3 people over a 10 hour (0900-1900h) period 
That was just over half of ALL the Mississippi Kites counted this season!!  And by the 30th, they had only been "open" for 10 days ...
By comparison, on September 2nd, there were only 2,771 counted.

Aug 20		3
Aug 21		0
Aug 22		0
Aug 23		0
Aug 24		141
Aug 25		10
Aug 26		232
Aug 27		4,156
Aug 28		11,151
Aug 29		25,259
Aug 30		32,009
Aug 31		19,717
Sep 01		1,189
Sep 02		2,771
To-date		96,641

[The Peregrine Chick]

Raptor Fall Migration 2016 has started ... first to move are always the Mississippi Kites ..

Corpus Christi Hawk Watch

• up to & including Aug 24 - 442
• Aug 25 - 2,291
• Aug 26 - 3,322
• Aug 27 - 7,570
• Aug 28 - 6,322

Total Mississippi Kites to-date at this site = 19,947
All other raptor species at this site to-date = 265 - including 3 American Kestrels, 2 Merlins, 2 Peregrines & 1 Prairie Falcon

Next through in big numbers should be the Broad-winged Hawks as I recall ....

To follow the raptor migration numbers - https://www.hawkcount.org/

[Alison]

Migration counts for over 275 sites are shown at the link below. From September 19 to 27, 2015, 1,371,966 raptors were counted from 107 sites. Wow!

https://www.hawkcount.org/

[The Peregrine Chick]

Good news is that our birds are still around - adults and chicks.  Bad news is that likely they won't be here for long.

From the folks at HawkWatch - the broad-winged hawks are starting to move pretty much everywhere and over 2600 Mississippi Kites have already gone through Corpus Christi.  This seems early to me but I'll have to do some checking to be sure of this ...

[The Peregrine Chick]

Oct 2nd @ Whytewold - fewer raptors, more peregrines

Sharp-shinned Hawk	358
Red-tailed Hawk	206
Bald Eagle	47
Broad-winged Hawk	45
Turkey Vulture	31
Coopers Hawk	21
American Kestrel	17
Peregrine Falcon	8
Northern Harrier	2
Merlin	2
Osprey	2

[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

[The Peregrine Chick]

FALL MIGRATION 2013

 

[allikat]

Hi Folks!

I've been on the Hawkcount site regularly and it always amazes me of how many raptors are counted, especially on the Broad Winged Hawk and sharp shinned hawk...my mouth dropped!

Anyway, today, I went on the site and have added the total amount of peregrines spotted withing the lasts couple of days migrating...  total of 290 peregrine falcons spotted during the observation days of Oct. 6 and 7.  Now, that number, put a smile on my face, considering there are still more that have yet to migrate. 

Go Peregrines Go!!!

[The Peregrine Chick]

On Oct 1st at the Veracruz hawk migration site (called River of Raptors) these were the fall migration totals to-date for a few species ...

Broad-winged Hawks = 1,126,985
Mississippi Kites = 281,613
Turkey Vultures = 48,510
Ospreys = 1,697
American Kestrels = 626
Peregrine Falcons = 503
Merlins = 33

[GCG]

Fall migration has begun for the Peregrines it seems ... and it seems like most of the migration stations haven't started to report regular sightings yet, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers look when they are.

  Certainly not words I want to see posted this early.

[The Peregrine Chick]

Fall migration has begun for the Peregrines it seems ... and it seems like most of the migration stations haven't started to report regular sightings yet, so it will be interesting to see how the numbers look when they are.

Aug 17 - Texas, Corpus Christi = 1
Aug 19 - Maine, Acadia National Park = 1; Texas, Corpus Christi = 1
Aug 20 - Texas, Corpus Christi = 3
Aug 22 - Texas, Corpus Christi = 1
Aug 23 - Pennsylvania, Bake Oven Knob = 2
Aug 24 - Pennsylvania, Ft Indiantown Gap = 1; Pennsylvania, Bake Oven Knob = 1;
             Connecticut, Quaker Ridge = 1
Aug 25 - Maine, Acadia National Park = 1

Just as a note, the American Kestrels were off and running on August 1st (when I started tracking) and the Merlins on August 6th.  

No reports of Gyr, Prairie or Aplomado Falcon movements but they usually only turn up on a very few sightings in the west and there are only a couple of monitored hawk migration sites west of the Mississippi River.