Date: 10/23/25 3:35 pm From: <reports...> Subject: [birders] Detroit River Hawk Watch (23 Oct 2025) 2976 Raptors
Detroit River Hawk Watch
Brownstown, Michigan, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 23, 2025
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Observation start time: 08:00:00
Observation end time: 15:00:00
Total observation time: 7 hours
Official Counter: Jo Patterson
Observers: Andrew Sturgess, Don Sherwood, Johannes Postma, Mark Hainen
Visitors:
We welcome visitors to our site as we are eager to share the joys of hawk
watching with one and all. Although there may be times in which we are all
very busy and need alone-time to concentrate, those are the times that are
most enjoyable for visitors as the skies are filled with migrating raptors.
Weather:
“Partly cloudy” does not do justice to the grandeur and majesty of
today’s passage of variegated clouds that paraded by us today. It started
with a panorama of tightly packed cumulus clouds over the lake on the far
horizon, that backlit by the rising sun, strongly resembled a snow-kissed
mountain range. The end of the day produced scattered dark clouds, so
heavily laden that rainfall was inevitable, giving us the rare view of a
double rainbow underneath a shower cloud passing nearby. It made putting up
with the persistent push of westerly winds that grew from eight mph to a
bracing seventeen, almost worth it. We are still adjusting to the change in
seasons and may not be hardened off yet. Although the temperature rose to
fifty-three, the real-feels were a few degrees lower due to windchill. The
barometer rose today and will continue its climb tomorrow. It was a better
day than yesterday, but there were still remnants of the low-pressure area
clearing out.
Raptor Observations:
The winds were not from our most favored direction today so that may have
affected the enthusiasm of the birds that chose to take a wild ride on the
heaving air mass. The turkey vultures, who seem to love a challenging wind,
gave it a shot, with two thousand, eight hundred and fifty-nine
respondents. Sharp-shins, although having a hard time maintaining a
constant altitude, gave us sixty-five to add to our total. Red-tails, most
of them riding along in the streams of turkey vultures, added thirty-six.
Northern harriers beat the red-shoulders by a count of six to four. Three
bald eagles were taking the plunge. The number “one” was shared by an
osprey, a merlin, and our unicorn bird for the day, a golden eagle that
came near closing time. just after the rainbows appeared.
Non-raptor Observations:
The pelicans were interesting today. A school of bait fish, perhaps shad,
had attracted the attention of a large assemblage of cormorants and raucous
gulls, and the pelicans joined in. All of these birds were short-hopping to
new positions to keep up with the moving school of fish. Later, the
pelicans were gathered in a tight group of about thirty birds in their
traditional feeding manner of dipping for fish, rather than diving as the
brown pelicans do. We have not seen this behavior so close before, so the
fish prey must be moving closer. Common terns were seen occasionally in the
slip. I think the Caspian tern may have departed for warmer climes. We are
seeing a lot more fly-bys from great egrets but the marsh, in which they
usually spend most of their time, is nearly dry from low water levels. The
blue jay season may be officially over. American crows are now the migrant
corvid to watch; today we had one hundred and seventy-seven. Monarchs were
unable to handle the winds today and were absent without leave.
Predictions:
The barometer will continue to climb tomorrow and perhaps the winds will
behave themselves and become more tolerable for birds and humans alike.
They are shown to be ranging from west to northwest, and seven to ten mph.
They should be dropping as the high pressure becomes more established and
the winds are not rushing into the receding low-pressure area. Much like
heat which travels from high to low, touch your range burner to prove it,
winds also flow from high to low. Heat will be moving from our bodies to
the colder air surrounding it, as it will be only in the very low fifties
tomorrow. The next two days will have potential since winds will be
northwest tomorrow and a lower strength northeast direction on Saturday.
The turkey vultures will continue to move, and hopefully, a monster
red-tailed day is in our future. We have not had one yet.
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Report submitted by Andrew Sturgess (<ajyes72...>)
Detroit River Hawk Watch information may be found at:
http://www.detroitriverhawkwatch.org
