2024 Migration Update: Grand Canyon, Manzano Mountains, and Corpus Christi HawkWatches

What has been happening at the ‘watches? Check out these updates from our fantastic 2024 Fall Raptor Migration Monitoring Crew Members!

Grand Canyon

It’s been a busy season at the Grand Canyon HawkWatch, with the season total so far already over 5,000 migrants! It’s been an above-average season for Ospreys, and the 2024 count season has already seen record numbers of Broad-winged Hawks (53) and Swainson’s Hawks (515)!

There has also been a great turnout to the weekly raptor migration programs, with lots of folks eager to learn about raptors! Shoutout to the folks with Northern Arizona Audubon Society for coming out to help with the count and to some very generous visitors from Flagstaff who delivered a care package of fresh produce for the crew! The Grand Canyon is currently experiencing near record-high temperatures for October, so visitors to the count site should be sure to bring plenty of water and sun protection.

Non-raptor visitors to the site include Common Ravens, Woodhouse’s Scrub-Jays, Red Crossbills, Western Bluebirds, and White-throated Swifts. Canyon bats are also commonly seen in the evening, and a young bighorn sheep even paid a visit to the site one day! 

In our downtime, the crew has been exploring the South Rim of the Grand Canyon and checking out the collection at the Grand Canyon Community Library.

Manzano Mountains HawkWatch

The Manzano Mountains HawkWatch count season is progressing well, with the midway total already surpassing last year’s final count. This is largely thanks to the big kettles of Swainson’s Hawks the site has been blessed with in the last week, which have been a joy to experience. Abnormally warm temperatures and issues with deer presence have affected trapping numbers, but some highlights include catching the first Golden Eagle and Peregrine Falcon at the Manzanos in several years. The crew also spent a lot of time improving the infrastructure of the site’s banding operations.

Being less than two hours away from Albuquerque, the Manzanos site experiences a plethora of visitors every year. In the last few weeks, the crew had visits from local regulars, former HWI crew members, and groups like the Sangre de Cristo Audubon Society and the New Mexico Mountain Club. The crew’s busiest day for visitors so far saw 23 visitors!

The crew has also been visited by a diversity of New Mexican wildlife, including a bobcat, horny toads, migrating Sandhill Cranes and White Pelicans, and a Greater Roadrunner—an odd sighting at 9,200 feet! Other cool species seen include a Black-tailed Rattlesnake and dozens of poor wills on the roads at night. A special highlight was returning from the blind at sunset and stumbling upon thousands of White-throated Swifts tornado-ing in the canyon and right overhead.

In their free time, the crew loves the atmosphere of New Mexico and all the great food and nature that can be found here. Some of the crew has hit the staples of Albuquerque, the pueblos of Santa Fe, and even a jazz concert under the full moon in White Sands National Park. When not exploring off the mountain, the crew make their own fun with some intense games of spoons in the wall tent!

Corpus Christi HawkWatch

Like the rest of the southern sites in HWI’s migration network, the Corpus Christi HawkWatch is experiencing an above-average year for migrating raptors. Although the count isn’t quite as high as it was during last year’s record-setting season, the count is well over the site average with a month to go in the season. As usual, Broad-winged Hawks make up the bulk of the flight, but the crew also counted an impressive number of Swallow-tailed Kites this year. 

It was especially fun to have so many of this season’s birds migrate through during the annual Celebration of Flight festival. Hundreds of people from across the country (and even the world!) were treated to back-to-back 100k bird days, making the platform at Hazel Bazemore Park the place to be during the three-day festival. The festival also created an opportunity for a mini-reunion of former crew members like Daniel Horton and Matt Cox, as well as tons of longtime friends of the site. 

It’s hard to get the crew to take advantage of their free time when there are so many birds to count, but they have taken some time to enjoy other birding hot spots in the Coastal Bend area and lots of delicious meals cooked by crew member Tammy Russo.