Derby Hill Hawk watch 3/30/25

Six members took their chances against a sketchy weather forecast for a chance at a potentially memorable day of raptor viewing at Derby Hill Hawk Watch.  Steve, Lori, and Andrew Van Kirk, Lisa DeFrancisco, Holly Nobel, and yours truly all made the trip to Mexico, NY.  The ride to Mexico is an hour and twenty minutes from the Geneva Thruway exit to Derby Hill. The Van Kirks rode together, and Holly and I carpooled with Lisa. The to and from trips were pleasant chats punctuated with an occasional hawk, eagle, vulture, etc. sighting. There were 3 other people in addition to our group, and the spotter David Brown. The Van Kirks arrived before the rest and had a pretty impressive species list started already. The weather was overcast with a gentle south breeze that made it feel a bit cooler that the actual temperature. There was an occasional light mist of dew in the air but nothing that could be called rain. Unfortunately we never really got the warm rising air currents that trigger large flights of raptors. Vultures were almost constantly present and every few minutes another hawk or falcon would appear, often giving us excellent close in flyover views. As David called out the ID, he often detailed the field marks he used in the identification. What we did not see in raptors was compensated for by a nice variety of songbirds and waterfowl. About 1:00 PM a few drops of rain began to fall. The weather maps indicated more rain heading our way. We all decided we had been lucky with the weather so far. Why risk getting wet now?

I tried to keep an accurate count of the 48 species we saw but that is quite a challenge at Derby Hill. In some cases, I could not even estimate.

Canada Goose 12

Wood Duck 9

Mallard

Long-tailed Duck 1

Common Merganser 7

Red Breasted Merganser 2

Mourning Dove 2

Killdeer 3

Ring-billed Gull

American Herring Gull 3

Great Blue Heron 4

Turkey Vulture

Osprey 3

Sharp-shinned Hawk 11

Coopers Hawk 5

Northern Harrier 9

Red-tailed Hawk 5

Belted Kingfisher 1

Red-bellied Woodpecker 1

Downy Woodpecker 4

Hairy Woodpecker 1

American Kestrel 4

Merlin 1

Blue Jay 2

American Crow 16

Black-capped Chickadee 2

Tufted Titmouse 1

Tree Swallow 12

Barn Swallow 1

Ruby-crowned Kinglet 1

White-breasted Nuthatch 1

European Starling

Eastern Bluebird 1

American Robin 30

Cedar Waxwing 23

House Sparrow 1

House Finch 1

Purple Finch 1

American Tree Sparrow 1

Dark-eyed Junco 1

White-throated Sparrow 1

Song Sparrow 4

Eastern Meadowlark

Red-winged Blackbird

Brown-headed Cowbird 

Rusty Blackbird

Common Grackle

Northern Cardinal 2

Respectfully submitted,

Kevin Armstrong