Cindy M
Guest
An occasional osprey or northern harrier trickled past Duluth's Hawk Ridge on Tuesday morning, but all of the talk was about the day before.
On Monday, hawk counters and about 150 birders witnessed a raptor movement on a scale never before seen at the ridge. A total of 101,698 broad-winged hawks streamed past the ridge, more than doubling the previous single-day record for the species. The old record was 47,922 on Sept. 18, 1993.
The single-day record for all raptor species was broken, too, with a tally of 102,329.
"It was awe-inspiring, chills on the back of your neck, to see that many birds," said Duluth's Dave Carman, who helped count Monday and is chairman of the Hawk Ridge Management Committee of the Duluth Audubon Society.
The day had started normally, with a few hundred birds tallied by midday. Then the broadwings began coming. They were bound south from Canada to South America on their annual migration.
Tim Smart, the official counter at Hawk Ridge, clicked the mounting totals onto three mechanical counters in his left hand.
From 1-2 p.m., he counted 20,202 broadwings. From 2-3 p.m., 20,510. From 3-4 p.m., 21,368. From 4-5 p.m., 31,024. From 5-6 p.m., another 6,799.
"When I went to get the numbers and realized that almost 30,000 birds had come over in the previous hour, I was in shock," said Debbie Waters, Hawk Ridge naturalist.
She began calling birders across Duluth. By evening, the day's remarkable results had traveled by e-mail to birders across the country.
Two of the nation's preeminent birders, authors and television hosts Don and Lillian Stokes of Hancock, N.H., happened to be in Duluth. They witnessed the event.
"This has to be right up there with the great bird-watching days in the country," Lillian Stokes said Tuesday, still at Hawk Ridge. "For Don and I, it's among the best birding days we've ever had, and it's our best hawk-watching day ever."
The Stokeses are authors of 30 birding books, including "Stokes Field Guide to Birds."
WHY IT HAPPENED
Hawks are naturally funneled over Hawk Ridge because they don't want to cross Lake Superior on their way south. But Monday's mass migration was the result of several factors.
"I would describe it as the 'Perfect Storm,' " Carman said.
The factors were these:
• Until Monday, no significant migration of broadwings had occurred this fall.
• Smart said a series of fronts in the West had held up migrating broadwings, in effect stacking them up.
• Monday's weather was sunny and warm in Duluth, creating excellent thermals that broadwings use to gain elevation.
• A gentle westerly wind pushed the birds toward Lake Superior, concentrating them over Hawk Ridge for easy counting.
• Temperatures early Monday along the Canadian border were in the 40s, which gave broadwings the urge to move south.
Smart had plenty of help counting Monday. Carman and longtime Duluth counter Frank Nicoletti picked other species out of the broadwing groups and kept track of those. The Stokeses helped spot building groups of broadwings, called kettles.
HOW THEY WERE COUNTED
When broadwings begin gathering over the North Shore, they form large kettles that spiral upward on the afternoon's thermals. Hardly flapping, the usually solitary birds rise 1,000 to 1,500 feet above Hawk Ridge until they reach cooler air. Then they peel out of the kettle and proceed south. Counters count them coming off the tops of the kettles, Smart said. Rarely does a bird come back north to be counted twice.
"They're honed in to move south," said Smart, who has counted hawks for 20 years in Michigan and Mexico.
Smart counted 10,690 broadwings in a single kettle Monday. If anything, Smart said, the totals under-represent the actual number of birds. Some are simply too high or too far out to see.
Smart once counted 556,000 birds in a single day in Gibraltar, Mich., he said. Last year, he counted 6.6 million birds in Vera Cruz, Mexico, topping 400,000 on four or five days.
"These guys are very good counters," Lillian Stokes said. "We've been counters ourselves. They are very careful."
Waters recalled an amazing moment that happened late Monday. Already, 75,000 broadwings had passed overhead. Lillian Stokes looked up the shore through her binoculars.
"She said, 'Oh... my... god. There's a kettle out there, and I can't see the end of it,' " Waters recalled. "We thought, 'Is it ever going to end?' "
SOURCE: http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/6791226.htm
**********************
Monday's record day at Hawk Ridge
• Broad-winged hawks: 101,698 (former single-day record was 47,922 on Sept. 18, 1993).
• Total raptors: 102,329 (former single-day record was 49,615 on Sept. 18, 1993).
• The 2 millionth raptor (since counts began in 1972) passed over Hawk Ridge on Monday. "Take my word for it. It was a broadwing," said Dave Carman, chairman of the Hawk Ridge Management Committee.
• Record in jeopardy: The previous record for an entire fall count is 148,615 in 1993. That could be broken this fall. Through Sept. 15, this fall's raptor total was 111,638.
SOURCE: http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/6791227.htm
On Monday, hawk counters and about 150 birders witnessed a raptor movement on a scale never before seen at the ridge. A total of 101,698 broad-winged hawks streamed past the ridge, more than doubling the previous single-day record for the species. The old record was 47,922 on Sept. 18, 1993.
The single-day record for all raptor species was broken, too, with a tally of 102,329.
"It was awe-inspiring, chills on the back of your neck, to see that many birds," said Duluth's Dave Carman, who helped count Monday and is chairman of the Hawk Ridge Management Committee of the Duluth Audubon Society.
The day had started normally, with a few hundred birds tallied by midday. Then the broadwings began coming. They were bound south from Canada to South America on their annual migration.
Tim Smart, the official counter at Hawk Ridge, clicked the mounting totals onto three mechanical counters in his left hand.
From 1-2 p.m., he counted 20,202 broadwings. From 2-3 p.m., 20,510. From 3-4 p.m., 21,368. From 4-5 p.m., 31,024. From 5-6 p.m., another 6,799.
"When I went to get the numbers and realized that almost 30,000 birds had come over in the previous hour, I was in shock," said Debbie Waters, Hawk Ridge naturalist.
She began calling birders across Duluth. By evening, the day's remarkable results had traveled by e-mail to birders across the country.
Two of the nation's preeminent birders, authors and television hosts Don and Lillian Stokes of Hancock, N.H., happened to be in Duluth. They witnessed the event.
"This has to be right up there with the great bird-watching days in the country," Lillian Stokes said Tuesday, still at Hawk Ridge. "For Don and I, it's among the best birding days we've ever had, and it's our best hawk-watching day ever."
The Stokeses are authors of 30 birding books, including "Stokes Field Guide to Birds."
WHY IT HAPPENED
Hawks are naturally funneled over Hawk Ridge because they don't want to cross Lake Superior on their way south. But Monday's mass migration was the result of several factors.
"I would describe it as the 'Perfect Storm,' " Carman said.
The factors were these:
• Until Monday, no significant migration of broadwings had occurred this fall.
• Smart said a series of fronts in the West had held up migrating broadwings, in effect stacking them up.
• Monday's weather was sunny and warm in Duluth, creating excellent thermals that broadwings use to gain elevation.
• A gentle westerly wind pushed the birds toward Lake Superior, concentrating them over Hawk Ridge for easy counting.
• Temperatures early Monday along the Canadian border were in the 40s, which gave broadwings the urge to move south.
Smart had plenty of help counting Monday. Carman and longtime Duluth counter Frank Nicoletti picked other species out of the broadwing groups and kept track of those. The Stokeses helped spot building groups of broadwings, called kettles.
HOW THEY WERE COUNTED
When broadwings begin gathering over the North Shore, they form large kettles that spiral upward on the afternoon's thermals. Hardly flapping, the usually solitary birds rise 1,000 to 1,500 feet above Hawk Ridge until they reach cooler air. Then they peel out of the kettle and proceed south. Counters count them coming off the tops of the kettles, Smart said. Rarely does a bird come back north to be counted twice.
"They're honed in to move south," said Smart, who has counted hawks for 20 years in Michigan and Mexico.
Smart counted 10,690 broadwings in a single kettle Monday. If anything, Smart said, the totals under-represent the actual number of birds. Some are simply too high or too far out to see.
Smart once counted 556,000 birds in a single day in Gibraltar, Mich., he said. Last year, he counted 6.6 million birds in Vera Cruz, Mexico, topping 400,000 on four or five days.
"These guys are very good counters," Lillian Stokes said. "We've been counters ourselves. They are very careful."
Waters recalled an amazing moment that happened late Monday. Already, 75,000 broadwings had passed overhead. Lillian Stokes looked up the shore through her binoculars.
"She said, 'Oh... my... god. There's a kettle out there, and I can't see the end of it,' " Waters recalled. "We thought, 'Is it ever going to end?' "
SOURCE: http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/6791226.htm
**********************
Monday's record day at Hawk Ridge
• Broad-winged hawks: 101,698 (former single-day record was 47,922 on Sept. 18, 1993).
• Total raptors: 102,329 (former single-day record was 49,615 on Sept. 18, 1993).
• The 2 millionth raptor (since counts began in 1972) passed over Hawk Ridge on Monday. "Take my word for it. It was a broadwing," said Dave Carman, chairman of the Hawk Ridge Management Committee.
• Record in jeopardy: The previous record for an entire fall count is 148,615 in 1993. That could be broken this fall. Through Sept. 15, this fall's raptor total was 111,638.
SOURCE: http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/6791227.htm
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