Date: 3/11/25 7:11 am From: p c <pcollinsca48...> Subject: [AZNMbirds] SEAZ: Tubac Hawk Watch - Ron Morriss Park, Tubac, AZ 03/10/25
SEAZ: Tubac Hawk Watch - Ron Morriss Park, Tubac, AZ 03/10/25
Season 13: Episode 031025 - “Free Fallin’ "
TL;DR
Migrating Raptors
Common Black Hawk 19
Zone-tailed Hawk 1
Red-tailed Hawk 42
Peregrine 2
Kestrel 1
Black Vulture 1
Turkey Vulture 81
Short-tailed Hawk 1 (Dark Morph)
Other Raptors
Cooper’s Hawk
Golden Eagle
Other Migrants
Mexican White Pelican 26
I thought I had more time. Arriving at Ron Morriss Park a few minutes late, I still managed to park the Mobile Hawk Watching Platform (my truck) in the usual spot. By 9:00 my chair was well positioned in the second line of hawk watchers, behind the line of scopes and the counter’s table. After a spot of tea and a bite of day old muffin I decided to wander around the park, checking in with birders scattered among the 30 cars parked in neat rows behind the dog park fence. A few birders walked into the park from the Anza Trail with an extra bounce in their steps and a smile on their faces, having started their morning birding with a successful quest for the ever elusive Rufous-backed Robin.
I was chatting with three long time regulars from Minnesota and Tucson on their first visit this year, when one interrupted my babbling, firmly announcing a bird rising over the restrooms.
A full hour earlier then yesterday, at 9:16 the first Black Hawks announced their intention to observer Mountain Daylight Time ignoring Arizona conventions. Our first migrating Zone-tailed hawk joined a Black Hawk, drifting over the park. No field guide could offer a better comparative identification lesson. By 10:00am 7 Black Hawks had been counted.
Many Redtails, light, dark and intermediate decided to head north today. Golden Eagles continued to make random appearances over the watch. Local Ravens, as many as 80, harassed passing raptors as small as Cooper’s Hawks and as large as Eagles. They have failed to halt the migration through their territory.
The last Black Hawk was counted at 4:16, seven hours after the first.
A large group of 26 Mexican White Pelicans crossed the park heading south. A tantalizing tern or gull was lost in the blue sky.
A visiting hawk watcher from Cape Henlopen entreated us to find some lower raptors. Black Hawks refused the request. The Henlopen counter had worked so hard on a late, high Black Hawk id, nearly falling out of her chair while tracking the bird north, that a Corpus Christi counter decided call out the little guns to satisfy the request. A small black dot, high in the west, folded its wings, rocketed across the sky, and dove behind the river trees on the east. I expected to see smoke and an impact crater. Unfazed by the commotion of the other watchers all around us, one steady HWI counter anticipated the next event, focusing just north of the supposed impact. The call went out and there it was. The Dark Morph Short-tailed Hawk, having pulled up at the last second, was struggling to regain altitude.
