A gliding Turkey Vulture; possibly one of the quarter-million vultures that migrated over the Veracruz, Mexico area last Thursday. Migrating Turkey Vultures sometimes form swirling funnels of soaring vultures. Remarkable numbers of Swainson’s Hawks have been passing over Veracruz and Panama on their way to northern Argentina (photos by Paul Konrad).

Last Thursday a quarter-million Turkey Vultures passed over the Veracruz area, although most of these vultures originated north of the Mexican border, along with more than 16,000 Swainson’s Hawks that were counted the same day! However, most Swainson’s Hawks probably passed through Veracruz before Thursday, considering that five days earlier, 45,722 Swainson’s were counted in Panama the Saturday before, along with about twice that number of Turkey Vultures.

Last Thursday (October 24) biologists at the two Veracruz River of Raptors site counted 249,043 Turkey Vultures and 16,099 Swainson’s Hawks. Individual count totals from the two count sites were 147,686 Turkey Vultures and 8,026 Swainson’s Hawks at the Chichi-caxtle site, plus the Carde site biologists counted 101,357 Turkey Vultures and 8,073 Swainson’s Hawks – plus other raptors – WoW!

In Panama, five days earlier (October 19) at the Cerro Ancon site on the edge of Panama City, a total of 32,494 Swainson’s Hawks and 86,953 Turkey Vultures were sighted along with 1,185 Broad-winged Hawks. Located far north of Panama City, the Semaphore Hill site reported 13,228 Swainson’s Hawks and 6,147 Turkey Vultures the same day, plus a big total of 45,303 Broad-winged Hawks!

North of the border, keep an eye on two south Texas sites – The Corpus Christi HawkWatch and Bentsen Rio Grande State Park HawkWatch for the highest late-season totals, but also be sure to take a look at other sites to see the diversity of species being recorded, such as the Goshute Mountains HawkWatch in Nevada, The Detroit River HawkWatch in Michigan, Holiday Beach HawkWatch in Ontario, Hawk Mountain in Pennsylvania, Ashland Nature Center in Delaware, the Florida Keys HawkWatch on Little Crawl Key, and any other sites that catch your eye in the list of hawk count sites across North America (link listed below).

Hawk Ridge in Duluth is experiencing daily Northern Goshawk sightings now during the much-anticipated fall migration of Gos along the western edge of Lake Superior. Goshawks are being seen at rates in the double digits some days with the highest daily total to date at 28, and a monthly total of more than 150 for October.

For the most interesting diversity of raptors, check out the Belize Raptor Watch totals for such exciting tropical raptors as Bat Hawks, Black Hawk Eagles, Double-toothed Kites, Short-tailed Hawks, and King Vultures.

Great thanks to all the people who work countless hours at the many hawkwatches, and especially to the Hawk Migration Association of North America for providing the invaluable Raptor Migration Database at http://www.hawkcount.org/index.php, which provides us with daily raptor and vulture counts from across the continent.