The early signs of raptor migration across North America and funneling into Mexico began showing loud and clear last week as northern hawkwatch sites from New York to Minnesota began seeing ever-larger numbers of Broad-winged Hawks, Bald Eagles, and Red-tailed Hawks. At the same time, Texas count sites featured impressive migration flights of Mississippi Kites and Broad-winged Hawks. It all becomes very clear when you refer to the Hawk Migration Association's exceptional resource – HawkCount – where you can see daily totals of each species at 29 count sites to date, with more checking in as migration progresses.
Saturday showed an obvious spike in numbers of raptors migrating at some locations, led by Braddock Bay HawkCount near Rochester, New York where 1,119 raptors were counted with highs of 908 Red-tailed Hawks and 102 Broad-winged Hawks, and 47 Bald Eagles. Farther west on the ridge above Lake Superior in Duluth, Minnesota, 426 raptors were tallied at Hawk Ridge including 322 Broad-winged Hawks, 81 Bald Eagles, 30 Northern Harriers, and 19 Red-tails. But the Corpus Christi HawkWatch led the way Saturday with 1,965 raptors made up of 1,930 Mississippi Kites.
The migration surge that continued Sunday was led by Smith Point, Texas where raptor numbers reached 2,416, bolstered by 2,317 Mississippi Kites as they migrated along the Gulf Coast. But all heck broke loose in the raptor count world Saturday when Veracruz, Mexico's first count of the season produced an exciting total of 8,526 birds of prey (at Chichicaxtle) that included 8,513 Mississippi Kites, all of which would have originated from their nesting range in the southern United States. The same day, the sister count site at Veracruz (Cardel) reported another 1,569 birds of prey that included 1,562 Mississippi Kites to add to the Veracruz mega-count of more than 10,000 raptors!
And that's just the start of another exciting fall of raptor migration that is documented in daily counts of birds migrating past key count points, and we can monitor the progress of the varied species of hawks, eagles, falcons, kites, and vultures. Plus, some count sites also count songbirds, flycatchers, swallows, waterbirds, and any other bird they could see, so you can get a feel for how fall migration is progressing for many species and species groups from now into November. All this is thanks to the Hawk Migration Association! To monitor the counts, see the HMA HawkCount raptor migration database at HawkCount