Rose Tree Hawk Watch Results

         

American Kestrel

           I have compiled the results for the 2015 Rose Tree Park Hawk Watch and would like to share it with all the club members. This was our 17th year of counting at the hawk watch and unfortunately it was also our slowest. We totaled only 3,195 hawks this season due in large part to the lack of a large Broad-winged Hawk count. We only have one big flight day this fall and the total for the season came in at 976 birds.

           The Bald Eagle count was down slightly, but I feel that was due to the fact that since we have a nesting pair of eagles at the Springton Reservoir, this led the counters to be a little more careful in determining whether the eagle were migrating. This could have led to the count being a little on the conservative side.

Adult Bald Eagle

           Turkey Vultures were the one of two species that the yearly average increased this year.

Turkey Vulture

           Weather played an important factor all season long as most days we seem to have faced southerly winds, which proved unfavorable for migration. Below are the results for the year.

Date	Obs Hrs	TV	BV	OS	NH	MK	BE	SS	CH	NG	RS	BW	SW	RT	RL	GE	AK	ML	PG	UV	UA	UB	UE	UF	UR	TOTAL
Aug 2015	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0	0
Sept 2015	206.25	0	0	112	11	0	59	211	33	0	5	967	0	9	0	0	70	10	5	0	7	6	0	1	7	1513
Oct 2015	196	396	25	34	22	0	34	472	98	0	66	9	0	84	0	1	74	19	17	0	5	2	3	2	8	1371
Nov 2015	98	84	23	0	4	0	11	58	14	0	42	0	0	66	0	0	1	2	1	0	1	4	0	0	0	311
Total 2015	500.25	480	48	146	37	0	104	741	145	0	113	976	0	159	0	1	145	31	23	0	13	12	3	3	15	3195

 
 

Golden Eagle

           As you can see from the table above we only found one Golden Eagle this year and totally missed finding any Northern Goshawks. 

           For those of you who like statistics the following table shows the biggest one day totals for all species during the past 17 years of observations.

Biggest Day Total per Species
TV	10/28/2011	436
BV	11/30/2006	36
OS	09/30/2011	47
NH	10/11/2003	14
MK	09/10/2006	1
BE	10/16/2005	20
SS	09/21/2001	217
CH	10/11/2003	37
NG	11/21/2006	3
RS	11/04/2012	63
BW	09/16/2012	3642
SW	09/25/2009	1
RT	11/07/1999	159
RL	11/11/1999	1
GE	11/03/2013	5
AK	09/15/2001	42
ML	09/21/2003	9
PG	10/05/2002	4
UV	09/04/2007	1
UA	09/04/2005	3
UB	11/04/2012	8
UE	10/10/2015	2
UF	10/17/2010	3
UR	10/11/1999	10
TOTAL	09/16/2012	3692

 
           The following table shows the largest year totals of each species.

Biggest Year Total per Species
TV	2011	1025
BV	2004	125
OS	2003	441
NH	2003	156
MK	2006	1
BE	2005	297
SS	2003	2033
CH	2003	354
NG	2001	20
RS	2005	278
BW	2000	13887
SW	2009	1
RT	2003	752
RL	1999	1
GE	2003	13
AK	2001	431
ML	2003	75
PG	2006	24
UV	2007	1
UA	2015	13
UB	2012	39
UE	2015	3
UF	2010	6
UR	1999	165

            I hope this little synopsis was useful and the counters including myself would like to ask for your assistance next year at the count. We can always use more volunteer counters to help take over a few days of the count. Please consider helping the dedicated volunteer counters next year. Thanks

Swallow-tailed Kite (recorded twice at Rose Tree)