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Hawk Counting SMRR's foremost purpose has been to gather migration counts for hawks.
The southeast Michigan area is a very important autumn site for migrating
raptors. It is situated at the end of a geographic funnel formed by Lakes
Ontario, Erie and Huron. Because migrating raptors from eastern Canada
are reluctant to cross these lakes, the geography diverts the birds in
their journey south and west, concentrating their numbers as they cross
the comparatively narrow Detroit River near the western end of Lake Erie.
The count data for one or two seasons is
not all that worthwhile by itself, but when
combined with several seasons from the same
site or with data from other sites across
the country, it offers valuable insights
into population and breeding trends for these
species. Education and Outreach Our other major purpose is outreach and education.
It is amazing how often we encounter people
who have spent their entire lives in the
southeast Michigan area with thousands of
raptors migrating over them, but who have
never even noticed what was happening. We
hope to make more people aware of these species
and better informed of issues that impact
the raptors' population status. Other Activities As SMRR continues to grow, we hope to continue expanding our activities. For the last several seasons we have had a limited hawk-banding operation at Lake Erie Metropark. In recent years, we also have partnered with the Rouge River Bird Observatory (www.rrbo.org) in a fall owl-banding study. We have presented birding talks at clubs as far away as Kentucky. We are also interested in collaboration on more research into resident and wintering raptor populations.
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