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I wanted to tell you earlier.  I really did!  In fact, I wanted to shout the results for this spring’s count from the rooftops!  But, a feeling inside me implored me to wait: audit the data first, ensure that the count forms have been faithfully transcribed electronically.  It may mean the news isn’t as timely as it was two weeks ago, but at least this news would be fit to print!

In a very real sense, this count hasn’t quite ended for me.  While I’ve been off the mountain a few weeks, I’m now back in New York wading knee-high in all the data we collected this spring.  Indeed, I’ve had the (dis)pleasure of watching dawn break these past few days as I work in Microsoft Excel under the spell of a coffee buzz; each row and column needed to be checked.  But was it worth it? (*twitch*twitch*)  Heck Yes!  An arithmetic error on one sheet yielded a few extra Turkey Vulture; an oversight on another yielded an Osprey that never got entered; and then there were the occasional typos with age/sex classes (putting down, say, 3 adult Red-tailed Hawk for the hour instead of 3 juvenile Red-tailed Hawk).  This is hardly unexpected; in fact, I was surprised by how few mistakes were made in the course of three full months of data collection!  We’ve got quite a team here.

So without further interruption (*cue drum roll and nervous anticipation*):

1 Black Vulture, 477 Turkey Vulture, 21 Osprey, 545 Bald Eagle, 80 Northern Harrier, 2425 Sharp-shinned Hawk, 7 Cooper’s Hawk, 23 Northern Goshawk, 5 Red-shouldered Hawk, 9346 Broad-winged Hawk, 4 Swainson’s Hawk, 745 Red-tailed Hawk, 98 Rough-legged Hawk, 23 Golden Eagle, 114 American Kestrel, 28 Merlin, 34 Peregrine Falcon.  When you include the 24 raptors that were identifiable only to genus or family level, the seasonal tally is kicked up to exactly 14,000 raptors of 17 species. (If I hadn’t seen the species breakdown, this figure would seem almost too exact to be believable.  Cool!)

We also recorded 104 species of non-raptors, including 20,625 Canada Goose, 546 Common Loon, and 382 Sandhill Crane.  Not shabby!  The Common Raven nesting on West Bluff also raised two rambunctious youngsters, which kept me excellent company in the final weeks of the count and were most fun to watch!

So, with the season behind us and the report nearly done, I close what may be my last entry on the Keweenaw Raptor Survey blog.  So long my friends, but not goodbye!

With Fond Regards from New York,
Arthur

A Season’s End

Today, June 15, marked the last day of the 2011 count at Brockway Mountain.  In a few days I’ll be returning to New York, and I’ll admit I’m not entirely looking forward to going back!  It has been a distinct pleasure for me to serve as this year’s counter at Brockway Mountain; what a privilege it has been to witness, firsthand, the spectrum of personality exhibited by one of the most beautiful places in Michigan over the course of an entire season!  And I’m equally blessed to have met so many warm, wonderful people, whose support and good company made my stay here in the mouth of the wolf pleasant and most comfortable.  (I honestly wish I could list them all here, and I feel remiss for not doing so!)

While the count is now officially over, this will not be my final post.  I will compile the results for the season and post them here for you shortly.  Please stay tuned!  And again, my heartfelt thanks to all of the new friends I made on and off the mountain this season!

With Fond Regards to you all from atop Brockway,
Arthur

A remarkable transformation has occurred: the barren, earthy browns and greys of the landscape surrounding Brockway Mountain has become an ocean of green that touches the dividing lakeline of Superior.  Even more remarkable is how swiftly those subtle tree buds became a profusion of foliage in only a matter of days, turning on its head that old joke about the boredom of watching grass grow.  Yes, Spring is anything but boring!  The planet’s life force at this time of year is apparent to even the most hardened indoor denizens, who would be successful in ignoring the ebb and flow of avian migration other times of the year.  But it’s hard to slight the uplifting changes to that “uncivilized” world that hugs the more tamed landscapes we dwell in, especially after growing accustomed to a melancholy stillness.  I think it is a welcome change, even if you love winter like I do.

Early morning temperatures still routinely hover a few degrees above the freezing point, although early afternoon temperatures now regularly climb into the 60s (and even the 70s).  To experience a temperature swing on the mountain of 30+ degrees in an eight hour period is still a small shock to my system, and I now find myself unsure of just how warmly I should dress for the day.  This should get easier as we close in on the Summer Solstice.  (Or not?)

Hawk flights remain strong, and new songbird species seem to arrive with each passing front.  The contrast from the first weeks of the count in March/April is simply stunning, and with Spring coming so late to the Mouth of the Wolf, I feel I’m no longer in any position to predict how much longer we can expect good flights from atop Brockway.  Even suboptimal winds seem to bring enough raptors to stave off empty binocular scans and navel gazing. (And this is definitely A Good Thing, as Martha Stewart used to say.)  And I now regularly park myself behind one of the stone barriers near West Bluff for a few minutes at a time to listen for songbirds in the valley between Brockway & Rocky Ridge, which functions as much as an acoustic amplifier for faint sounds as it serves as a wind block for the vibrant life taking shelter in the trees below.

In any case, the migration’s still got juice in it.  Hopefully you do, too!  More soon . . .

Pausing for Thought Atop Brockway,
Arthur

Broad-winged Hawk

There was just a spectacular hawk flight on May 5th at Brockway Mountain. We tallied in 2528 east-bound raptors, as well as 123 Common Loons. 15 Bohemian Waxwings were nice to see and getting a touch on the late side for them to still be around.

Raptor-wise the highlights were 2 SWAINSON’S HAWKS (1 light morph and 1 dark morph), 3 dark-morph “western” Red-tails and the season’s 2nd(!) near full albino Red-tail. Of course the 1600+ Broad-winged Hawks were pretty awesome too.

dark morph Swainson's Hawk

The numbers from the day-
Turkey Vulture- 79
Osprey- 4
Bald Eagle- 27
Northern Harrier- 4
Sharp-shinned Hawk- 614
Broad-winged Hawk- 1643
SWAINSON’S HAWK- 2 (1 light juvie, 1 dark adult)
Red-tailed Hawk- 108 (including 3 dark morphs, and 1 near complete albino bird)
Rough-legged Hawk- 16
Golden Eagle- 1
American Kestrel- 27
Merlin- 1
Peregrine Falcon- 2

partial albino Red-tailed Hawk

a dark morph "Western" Red-tailed Hawk

Common Loon

A Blistering Revival!

The results lately are dramatic.

If there was any doubt this season about Brockway’s importance as a springtime watchsite, May 5 should help put it to pasture: 2500 birds, 13 species of raptors.  Yes, that’s a single day’s count!  What’s even more surprising is that the full week to follow maintained a break-neck pace, with southerly winds ushering a steady stream of migrants into the tip of the Keweenaw.  I’ll allow Skye Haas the opportunity to personally report on that “big day”, but it’s worth noting that the week of May 5 thru May 11 accounts for almost 71% of the season’s total of 7584 birds till this point (with another month still to go!), which is amazing when you consider the count season began March 15.  Of course, Broad-winged Hawk and Sharp-shinned Hawk pad our totals this time of year, and even compared to these birds which move as if rushing to pack into a Tokyo subway car (those of you who’ve been to Japan will know what I’m talking about!), our less numerous migrants (e.g., Rough-legged Hawk) are every bit as important to our study of Keweenaw migration.  It is for this reason we begin the count as early as we do, although (admittedly) we were a little surprised at how slowly the season began.  And it’s easy to begin thinking the birds didn’t start moving en masse until the beginning of May; seasonal variation is reason enough for why it is difficult to anticipate when the bulk of a season’s migration will take place at any given locale.  But the variation each year is also why studying hawk migrations never becomes boring.  We hope you agree!

In any case, I wanted you, Dear Reader, to know that things have been just ducky, and that you have not been forgotten!  Thank you, as always, for your support, and I hope to see you soon on the mountain!  The weather is just fine, and the birds, as always, are magnificent!

Developing a binocular callous on Brockway,
Arthur

Bleak SS Days (cont.)

May 1′s Sharp-shinned Hawk flight seemed to pick right up from April 30′s strong showing, but strangely, in the opposite direction!  Where we had 185 eastbound birds and only 13 westbound birds on Saturday,  Sunday brought only 30 eastbound birds and 131 westbound birds; that Sunday westbound count  is nearly 71% of the Saturday eastbound count!  Wow!  With brisk southerly winds both days pushing migrants of all stripes to the northern end of the peninsula, the traditional notion that these westbound birds are indeed many of the same birds observed flowing east past the watchsite earlier seems to hold true.  But without hard data to fall back on (e.g., that produced by other surveys conducted simultaneously in the peninsula), I can do nothing more than speculate.  Fascinating!

Wishing for better weather at Brockway,
Arthur

Bleak SS Days . . .

A bleak sky?  For sure!  Today, we spent the day shielding our eyes from the wind-blown particles of eroded conglomerate blown off the ridge face by nearly constant 35+ mph southeasterly winds.  My usually sturdy scope tripod was blown to the ground with ease, and it seemed as if I was routinely chasing down an article of clothing or making sure my clipboard wasn’t blown off the mountain.  Even after a shower, I’m still finding bitsies of stone in my hair.  Yes, this was an interesting day!

NWS forecasts suggested April 30 would have all the makings of an exceptional flight, and we came to work anticipating numerous “kettles” of Broad-winged Hawk high over our heads.  But birds particularly reliant on soaring flight were conspicuously absent in number today.  Those BWs would have none of these winds, and we were treated to trickle of only 15 birds that came in low over the treetops in ones and twos.  No kettles.

However, Sharp-shinned Hawk and other powered-fliers (including Peregrine Falcon) were out in force.  As cloud cover thickened and progressively invaded the sky, we were treated to a nearly constant movement of birds within easy unassisted view of West Bluff low in the valley between Brockway and Rocky Ridge.  This flight-line was probably a blessing in disguise; our binoculars were under the spell of an unyielding tremor from those winds, and not particularly useful for viewing at distance.  In any case, only a few daring fliers ventured any appreciable height above the treeline, and nearly all our observations were unexpected flybys that required constant vigilance.  No doubt we missed some birds without the benefit of our optics, but I think we did pretty good job under the circumstances to milk the day for what it was worth!  This was hardly anyone’s ideal spring hawkwatching day, and I’d like thank Karen Lund, in particular, for choosing to spend the day on the ridge with me in conditions that left us both temporarily hard of hearing and a little worn around the edges.  (I suspect we’ll both sleep well this evening!)

The final totals for this unusual day were: 37 Turkey Vulture, 2 Osprey, 9 Bald Eagle, 7 Northern Harrier, 185 Sharp-shinned Hawk, 1 Northern Goshawk, 15 Broad-winged Hawk, 6 Red-tailed Hawk, 10 Rough-legged Hawk, 17 American Kestrel, 4 Peregrine Falcon.

Is there a lesson to be learned in this?  Yes:  You’ve got to be totally nuts to be a hawk counter!  Fortunately, I already knew that, and I don’t mind being a little crazy so long as I’m having a heck of a lot of fun and making fine friends and memories.  How blessed I am to be in exactly that position right here in Copper Harbor!

With luck, maybe tomorrow (May 1) might bear witness to (much) friendlier weather and some of those BWs we were hoping for today.

Marveling at bleak skies over Brockway,
Arthur

BLACK VULTURE!

Very exciting yesterday (25 April) was the passage of a Black Vulture past Brockway. A rare visitor to the Upper Peninsula there have been only 8 documented records  A Black Vulture was reported at Brockway in 1991, but no documentation has been submitted to the Michigan Bird Records Committee for review. A crew of merry birders arriving to Manitou observed a Black Vulture in July 2002, and the bird (presumed same individual) was seen two weeks later in Copper Harbor. Surprisingly, 3 other records of Black Vulture have occurred in the Keweenaw Peninsula, a September bird in 1999 in Agate Harbor (in view of West Bluff!) and two winter records from Houghton County.

Here is Arthur’s post to the UP listserv about yesterday’s sighting.

Today from atop Brockway, under partial cloud cover with NW winds
“gusting” to ~8 mph, I observed a Black Vulture working its way north
over Rocky Ridge and then proceed east towards Copper Harbor at
exactly 13:15 EST today.  My hope is that I’ll catch it on the
westbound flight tomorrow!

Other birds seen yesterday included

30 Turkey Vultures, 1 Osprey, 10 Bald Eagles, 6 Northern Harriers, 45 Sharp-shinned Hawks, 3 Northern Goshawks, 16 Red-tailed Hawks, a non-eastbound Golden Eagle; as well as 25 Common Loons, 4,746 Canada Geese, 44 Sandhill Cranes, and 5 Bohemian Waxwings.

Hope to see you on the Mountain!

~Skye Haas

Common Ravens

A Starry Expanse

A friend once told me that the stars in the night sky were among “one of the most lamentable losses of our time,” and I can’t help but agree.  Light pollution is a very serious problem for stargazers in cities and their suburban environs.  Growing up in lower New York, I always fancied the thought of gazing up into a skyful of innumerable stars, but my enthusiasm would make a not-so-soft landing when I gazed up into the heavens and then down to my star atlas only to discover how much I wasn’t seeing because of my proximity to several densely populated towns and one of the largest cities in the world.  To this day I have still not seen the Milky Way as more than a dirty film running across those autumn night skies, and I’m a little saddened by the thought that I was born only a century too late to exercise my right to a seemingly unlimited celestial sphere abounding with infinitesimal points of light.

According to a  recent survey by the Hawk Migration Association of North America, most “successful” hawkwatch sites are located within 40 miles of a major city.  And these very same hawkwatch sites, for this very reason, generally aren’t very good stargazing sites because of the light pollution that accompanies the development of most (greater) metropolitan areas.  But Brockway Mountain, by virtue of its relative isolation, doesn’t have this problem.  So on a clear night when the winds are weak (and not likely to shake & stir your view of the heavens through your binocular/telescope), consider taking a trip up the mountain.  You may discover, as I did last night, some of the best views of the night sky you’ve ever had accompanied by the invigorating cleanliness of UP evening air.  And if you visit during the peak periods of migration in spring, you might also hear songbirds passing over your head in that starry expanse.  Even with the light winds generating an ever-present “rush” in my ears on that fine evening, I was able to pick out the call notes of near-passing Fox Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Dark-eyed Junco, and at least one Emberizidae (Sparrow) species that I wasn’t able to identify.

This business with birds moving at night may come as a surprise to some of you.  The count KRS is conducting at Brockway necessarily focuses on diurnal (daytime) bird migration, particularly those of the raptors.  While there are cases in the literature confirming nocturnal migration by Osprey and Peregrine Falcon (to use just two examples), even for these species this appears to be very much the exception rather than the rule: most birds of prey employ migration strategies that utilize daytime phenomenon (e.g., thermal and ridge updrafts) to minimize the energy they need to expend to travel from their wintering grounds to their summer breeding territories (and vice-versa).  But many non-raptors, especially songbirds, actually migrate at night while most of us are asleep (or vegetating in front of the television watching reruns of The Price is Right).  This is why many birds seem to just show up one spring morning without warning.  And then suddenly vanish one autumn day.  Apparently, even in the avian world, if you snooze, you lose!

So, please: Enjoy this night sky!  Views like the one we have from Brockway are rapidly becoming a privilege rather than a right in this age of artificial light, artificial this, artificial that.  If our society continues to view the night with trepidation, as something to conquer rather than embrace, it will be only a matter of time before unadulterated views of the night sky will become little more than an ancestral memory of our race.

Diurnally & Nocturnally Yours at Brockway,
Arthur

Back at my old hawkwatch in New York, it’s often happened that I’ll point out a distant raptor to a visitor who’ll respond with rapt attention by fixing his field glass on a floating pepperspeck somewhere just off the horizon.  This sense of communion is always a joy for me, as I like nothing more than to share my passion for raptors and the mechanisms for their migration with people who rarely have the opportunity to witness this annual spectacle for themselves.  But sometimes this connection is abruptly severed when I put a very familiar name to a bird otherwise unidentifiable by plumage, and the other party will utter a dismissive ”Oh!” and promptly drop their binocular from that distant place where our bird was soaring effortlessly against a beautiful blue sky.  ”Just a Red-tail,” they mutter.  What?  ”Just a Red-tailed Hawk?!!” I want to desperately fire back, but I choose to bite my sun-chapped lips instead.

I think what annoys me about this comment is not that it comes from someone who probably observes (vultures aside) fewer than 25 raptors in the wild each year (i.e., far too few to be taking any raptor for granted!), but that cocooned within his attitude toward this “roadside” hawk is the view that the sheer conspicuousness of this beautiful and astonishingly adaptable bird somehow diminishes its uniqueness.  I’m sorry, but I cannot understand this!  No matter how much of a fixture they’ve become, even before taking the amazing life history of Buteo jamaicensis into consideration, this is a bird that appears to be running counter to the trend in many parts of this country in that it is actually thriving in lockstep with the march of human civilization rather than falling to its tarsi in the latter’s wake.  And it’s a damned graceful bird in the air, too!  And with each passing season I spend in the field watching hundreds of them, I realize more profoundly how little I really know about them.  ”Just” a Red-tailed Hawk?  Hah!  If that bird isn’t special just by virtue of being enmeshed in an ecological give-and-take so vast that it defies comprehension, then absolutely nothing anywhere is special.  Not those hawks, not us people.  Maybe I’m being simplistic and a tad harsh, but my sentiment is borne of my utter respect for these amazing creatures.  Surely I can’t be the only person who feels this way!

I got a little off-track, methinks, but as a hawk counter, I’ve been served a generous dollop of Red-tailed Hawk.  But it wasn’t until I came to Brockway Mountain that I stood a chance of seeing up to four subspecies/races of Red-tailed Hawk (i.e., B. j. borealisB. j. calurusB. j. kriderii, B. j. harlani) not including intergrades (birds that exhibit plumage traits of more than one subspecies), because in New York we’re apt to only ever see one race (B. j. borealis).  And today, April 21 at 9:51 EST, I saw my first dark morph adult “Western” Red-tailed Hawk (B. j. calurus) passing westbound directly overhead, which breaks the exclusive run of light morph “Eastern” birds (B. j. borealis) that I’ve seen so far this season at Brockway.  It was a beautiful bird, and one I almost didn’t scrutinize closely enough to determine what it was; only minutes before, there had been a dark morph adult male Rough-legged Hawk (incidentally, also soaring in tandem with a light morph adult “Eastern” Red-tailed Hawk), so seeing a dark buteo pass overhead didn’t initially raise any flags given the proximity of that roughie to the watchsite.  Lesson learned: give every bird you’ve already ID’d a second look if you’ve taken your eyes off of it!

A partially albinistic adult Red-tailed Hawk (Image by Joseph Youngman)

Barely any time elapsed since my observation of the dark “Western” bird when, at 10:24 EST, I was treated to an almost freakishly white bird cutting a path south in front of West Bluff: a partially albinistic adult Red-tailed Hawk.  Nearly all of the feathers covering this bird’s head, body, and wings were white as snow, contrasted only by the classic red tail, dark “belly band,” and a few scattered grey-black remiges.  Wow!  I’d seen otherwise normal-looking birds with a few white remiges (flight feathers) or retrices (tail feathers), but never anything like this! If it wasn’t already apparent, Red-tailed Hawk are hardly the “plain folk” that one notable hawk guide claims they are.

I’ll close my entry today with a simple request: if you don’t do this already, please make a daily ritual of trying to find the uniqueness in all the common things around you, because I suspect that’s where genuinely amazing things are hidden.

Gazing at birds and humans alike from atop Brockway,
Arthur

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