HawkFest Prelude - 14 Sep 2018

With the first free afternoon of the fall I made a run down to Detroit River Hawk Watch at Lake Erie Metropark to (hopefully) see some of the Broad-winged Hawk flight. Yesterday's 22,000+ birds would probably be the peak flight for the season.

With the Hawk Fest 2018 starting tomorrow I'd be manning a table w/ Jane Ferreyra (Executive Director of HMANA) representing the Detroit River Hawk Watch. I came by to look for last year's photo display that I had created, but sadly no-one remembered where it might be. Luckily, Jane had plenty of stuff to hock so I could help her out.

I brought my gear, but decided that today I'd try to play with hand-held digiscoping. With the Sony a6300 connected to the Swarovski STX85 via the Digidapter™I would be shooting ~1125mm effective focal length. Bad mistake.

Sure, I managed to capture a few birds flying overhead, but of the 1000 photos I took maybe 5 came out decent enough. I thought I was getting great photos of Bonaparte's Gulls and Forster's Terns, but they were all bad. These two were good.

The first ever Broad-winged Hawk blasted out of the trees along the shoreline, flew directly over our heads, and landed in the trees behind us. I couldn't find it through the scope (too much magnification). It flew off before I could.

A Peregrine Falcon came across the canal and went after a Bonaparte's Gull that had to dive into the water just to avoid getting killed. It also flew right over our heads and all I could do was watch.  I even blurted out "Cooper's Hawk!". Yep, bad day. At least the birds were flying.

Lake Erie Metropark--Detroit River Hawk Watch, Wayne, Michigan, US
Sep 14, 2018 10:00 AM - 2:00 PM
Protocol: Stationary
5 species

Bonaparte's Gull (Chroicocephalus philadelphia)  6
Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri)  4
Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)  1
Broad-winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus)  6
Peregrine Falcon (Falco peregrinus)  1

View this checklist online at https://ebird.org/checklist/S161011606

This report was generated automatically by eBird v3 (https://ebird.org/home)