First let me apologize for the lack of updates, the poor weather over the last week has continued to slow things down resulting in little to talk about and a lack of pictures.
However this week has already had a couple good days, one of which featured the highlight of the season! On the 31st (as luck would have it my day off), Debbie had a Black Vulture fly right past the count site! Impressively this is the third Black Vulture for the count , not bad for the furthest north hawkwatch in the state and one that’s that’s only been around for 6 years!
As the season winds down the flight becomes dominated by immature birds. At this point in the spring the immatures are moulting flight and tail feathers, with some its amazing they can even fly!
Compare this adult Broad-winged Hawk to the immatures below it
Its not just the Broad-winged’s that moulting, here are a couple young Red-tailed’s with wing moult.
Sub-adult Bald Eagles always seem to moulting some flight feathers
Not as common at this time of year is an adult bird in moult, like this Peregrine Falcon missing a primary in each wing. Note that if a raptor looses a primary on one wing it will drop the same feather on the other wing in order to keep things balanced.
Also missing some feathers was this Common Raven, this is not moult related though and is likely due to some sort of trauma
Speaking of moulting, late May means its time for the annual non-breeding Canada Goose flight north. Geese moult all their flight feathers at once and are flightless until new feathers grow in, so the non-breeders head as far north as the James Bay to secluded areas to moult.
If you’ve made it this far you deserve a reward, so here’s a few better looking birds from around town.
The last week has been plagued by poor weather with snow, rain, and fog all hampering the count along with northerly winds almost everyday.
Sunday did have great south winds and the day started clear, then fog moved in and dropped visibility to under 500yds. The fog eventually cleared a bit but with winds over 50mph and approaching rain there just wasn’t much moving.
Despite the winds the warblers have finally arrived with over 20 species seen in the last few days around Copper Harbor!
Hopefully things pick up, but until then here’s some pictures!
The biggest flight of this season happened on the 7th with over 1,300 raptors migrating east along the Brockway ridge. The bulk of the flight was made up by over 460 Sharp-shinned Hawks (the second highest Sharpie total ever for the count!) and over 630 Broad-winged Hawks, at times a dozen Sharpies and Broad-winged’s were zipping past a few feet a way to the left and right! Mixed in were nice counts of 17 Northern Harriers, 26 Rough-legged Hawks, and 16 Peregine Falcons. Also notable was a young western Red-tailed Hawk (photo below), a banded Bald Eagle (photo below), and 8 Am. White Pelicans. Due to the strong SE winds that day all the birds were low, with many at or below eye level and coming straight at you giving the classic “Brockway view”.
Since the 7th things have been slow, with poor winds the 8th -10th, and rain/snow the 11th-12th. The 13th had a light flight with under a hundred birds for the day, but after not seeing much of anything the previous days even that was enjoyable!
It looks like south winds are in the forecast, so as long as its not raining there should be some hawks moving.
In town the Eurasian Collared-Dove has not been relocated and very few new migrants have arrived due to the poor weather, but its May and a night of southwinds can easily change that!
Don’t forget that this Saturday is the Copper Harbor Bird Festival, come on out and enjoy some interesting talks and walks (and maybe bring your favorite hawk counter a donut or pasty)!
Saturday, May 16th
1:00 pm ~ Live Raptor Program with Northwoods Wildlife Center
This is a fun program for the whole family. You will meet a few of their resident birds up close and personal. The program is about 1 hour.
Held at the Grant Township Community Hall adjacent to the Copper Harbor Welcome Center. Suggested donation $5.00 per person – kids free!
2:30 pm ~ At this time there are 2 options
Take a ride up Brockway to meet the counter for The Brockway Mountain Hawk Watch and see some birds!
OR
Take a guided bird and wildflower walk. There will be 2 parts to the walk, both ending back at the hall, so you can choose how far you wish to go. (weather permitting)
5:00 pm ~ Local Count Updates with Joe Youngman
This presentation will feature an update to the long running Manitou Island Bird Survey as well as the newest water bird study on done last fall from Hebard Park near Copper Harbor. Along with new data and interesting findings, Joe will share many beautiful images of the islands.
The weather finally broke at the start of May and since then the days have been warm and the flight has been steady, with Broad-winged and Sharp-shinned Hawks making up the bulk of each days flight. Rough-legged Hawk had a season high of 41 on May 2nd, while the high for Broad-winged currently is 462 on May 4th (I suspect that won’t last very long), 95 Sharp-shinned Hawks on May 6th is a nice count, but not quite up to a high count status. A sure sign that we are edging towards the later half of spring is that immature Bald Eagles and Red-tailed Hawks are starting to become the common age in each days flight (you know the season is waning when the Broad-winged flight shifts to the immatures). Common Loons have also been moving, with a nice count of 55 on May 5th.
With the Broad-wingeds came the first Swainson’s Hawks of the season, with an adult light morph winging east with an adult dark morph on the 4th, and two west bound light morph adults the afternoon of the 6th.
When your a small bird that lives in the open country you spend a lot of time looking up
Highlights of the last week off the mountain include a Night-Heron (poor lighting prevented identification to species) and the first Keweenaw Peninsula record of Eurasian Collared-Dove! Other local sightings and recent arrivals of late include Am. White Pelican, Solitary Sandpiper, Wilson’s Snipe, Lesser Yellowlegs, Great-crested Flycatcher, Orange-crowned, Nashville, Palm and Pine Warblers, White-crowned and Lincoln’s Sparrows, and Eastern and Western Meadowlarks. Dragonfly’s have been emerging with Common Green Darner and Variegated Meadowhawk seen over the last few days.
As long as these southerly winds prevail there should be hawks flying, but don’t get too comfortable just yet-the forecast is calling for snow next week!
The last week has featured steady north winds, snow, heavy snow, blowing snow, snow flurries, and light snow. Needless to say it has felt more like a November day then anything approaching spring.
It does seem that we may have turned a corner as I haven’t seen snow in a couple days now. The winds remain north though and the hawk numbers are showing that, with bits and pieces of a flight slowly sputtering through on a semi daily basis. Everything is just a south wind away from really cutting loose, but until that happens Brockway is a scenic view that I find slightly less interesting each day the north wind blows.
Off the mountain I found a Ross’s Goose in Eagle Harbor the 22nd, it was present through the 25th and represents the 2nd record for Keweenaw County. 
For the first time this season spring-like weather was the norm! Along with the spring-like weather has come the raptors with enjoyable flights and over 500 birds for the week. While Bald Eagle, Red-tailed (including a few of the dark western variety) and Sharp-shinned Hawks are making up the bulk of the flights, Golden Eagles are still being recorded most days and Rough-legged Hawks and Turkey Vultures are increasing.
The first Broad-winged Hawk of the spring arrived the 15th, while the first Osprey arrived the 19th. Its only a matter of days until the Broad-wings really hit and bring in a Swainson’s or two!
Note that while the drive up is now snow free, the road surface is in poor shape with several potholes that have tried to swallow my car whole.
The forecast for the week is less then promising (it rained/sleeted/snowed today) with snow forecasted along with northerly winds.
Both the west and east end approaches to the mountain are now accessible by car! Come on up and experience the spring migration!
Poor conditions continued to dominant the count through Saturday, but things broke wide open Sunday with south winds that sent temps soaring into the 60’s! The south winds also resulted in the biggest flight of the season! However as luck would have it that was my day off so Joe Youngman had the fun job of counting the 249 Redtails, 117 Sharpshins, 71 Rough-leggeds, 57 Bald Eagles, 43 Turkey Vultures, 21 Northern Harriers, and 12 Kestrels that passed by that day. The forecast looks promising for another good flight in the up coming days, fingers crossed it actually happens. Vehicle traffic on the mountain is slowly increasing with reports indicating the west side is “reasonably passable” (take that however you wish). I would suggest avoiding the east side as evidenced by the photo below (both these vehicles spent over 24 hours stuck on the mountain). 
The non-raptor migration is finally hitting the area with Canada Goose, Am. Widgeon, Hooded Merganser, Killdeer, Am. Woodcock, Yellow-bellied Sapsucker, Northern Flicker, Eastern Phoebe, Ruby-crowned Kinglet, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Song Sparrow, Savannah Sparrow, Vesper Sparrow, Fox Sparrow, Le Conte’s Sparrow, Common Grackle, Red-winged and Rusty Blackbird, Eastern and Western Meadowlark all arriving in the last week. 
