Visitors: Thanks to Kitty, Olga, Chip, Noel, Hugh and Liz for helping conduct today's count. A special mention to Noel and Juliette for making sure I am always well supplied with hot chocolate on these cooler mornings!! It was also great to have several visitors through the day, including Matt who volunteered his keen eyes, and Emily and the ERCA education team who came up to visit us and plan for the school groups visiting later in the week.
Weather: Overcast conditions with cloud cover increasing in the afternoon and strong northerly winds throughout the day. Temperatures in the mid-teens.
Raptor Observations: Raptor of the day was undoubtedly an immature Swainson's Hawk which passed north of us in the late afternoon, giving distant but diagnostic views.
A comparatively quiet day otherwise, although the winds did blow several birds very close and we had really nice views of most species through the day. Harriers continue to move in reasonable numbers with 84 today, as do Kestrels and Sharp-shinned Hawks. Today's 740 Broad-winged Hawks continues to push us closer to another record, as we are now just over four thousands birds away from the highest ever season count for this species at Holiday Beach!
Finally!!! After spending most of the month excruciatingly following every single Trail's Flycatcher through the reeds, willow and dogwood, one finally gave the diagnostic contact call of an Alder Flycatcher to reward our efforts.
It was otherwise fairly quiet with most of the small birds keeping under cover, but we did record our first Common Terns for the season and were entertained by a flock of Chimney Swift dancing above the tower.
Predictions: Overnight showers will limit passerine movement, but hopefully we will see a few more warblers tomorrow that are held up by the easterly forming over Lake Erie in the early morning. Raptor numbers should be slightly lower than today with easterly winds no longer forcing the birds along the north shore of the lake, but we will hopefully still see some falcons and harriers moving in spite of the occasional showers. ======================================================================== Report submitted by Michael Burton-Smith () Holiday Beach Hawk Watch information may be found at: http://hbmo.ca/
-- Birders is a service of the Great Lakes Commission. Visit us at www.glc.org
Messages and content distributed on Birders are the sole responsibility of the subscriber providing such content and do not reflect the views, policy or position of the Great Lakes Commission. --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Birders" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to birders+<unsubscribe...> To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/great-lakes.net/d/msgid/birders/<010101a0cb2708c3-f9cd4a68-b44b-4467-8311-304bf9becceb-000000...>
