Sunday and the Hawk Migration Association With Tami

On Sunday Sept 19, 2026 Bill was only able to come up to sit with Tami, who was already there, for a short while; so the report gets to be a little different today. Tami is our reporter, and I get to tell a bit about her. First of all, she more than doubled our count so far, with 143 BWS as a count. She's not a magician, the environment was just good for hawks to be showing up. LOL Tami once counted in SC with a group who used the page form from, what was then, the Hawk Migration Association of North America or HMANA. Today I am posting her pdf in two parts from screenshots I took of it. And her lovely story of how the day went, which she emailed over with the form. Although we report to the Hawk Migration Association, now the HMA, we have never used their sheets, simply because all the guys adopted Bill's notation pattern which they all kept in a spiral notebook. Many of the hawks listed on the HMA report sheets are western species and were always highly unlikeley for us to see, But they were versatile if you were a traveling watcher. Also, in discussing the hawks from the west in teaching sessions for any who might wish to visit a western sight, like Corpus Christi, TX. A very desirable site, because it is the funneling area for all the hawks crossing our border to sights further south. The counters there are an incredible bunch with skills beyond amazing, to capture the 100s of thousands they see. But we appreciate Tami adding to her life's work in the same form she always has. It makes storing records easier, that's for sure. I want to thank Tami for her involvement over the years, especially the coverage of hours when Bill has not been able to be there, and her support when ever she is able to come all the way from across the river to be there! >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> (This version of Blogger doesn't allow me to make new paragraphs, so I have to do something to note a new one. Thus the arrows.) Anyway, with this discussion, I am able to make my annual nod to the HMA tools for storing the records from all the lookouts which participate in recording and sending their stats. We are one of them, but there are sites from Canada and Mexico and further south, which also share data, which I love to see. Those stats are recorded at HAWKCOUNT.ORG. This is where Jimmy records the data Bill, Tami and Niclole send, which makes a permanent record which anyone who visits the site can see. That site allows us to compare data with other sites across the North American continent. Now, we don't compare to sites like places where the rivers of hawks flow through. But we can compare to the other smaller sites, mostly North of us, with similar numbers to ours. Because it takes all the hawks passing little sites across the nation, and then some not counted in between, to make the magnanimous numbers flowing through places like Corpus Christi. I could talk all day about the experiences from the data at all these sites, but for now I want the focus to be on how we partner with them to make the numbers count. One last note I want to make before posting Tami's sweet note and the bits from my screenshots, is that Bill from early on sent our records to HMANA, but at that time the data was sent via mail, not entered directly into a website as it is now. It was recorded somewhere, but we don't know where. But now you CAN look back either on our site or on Hawkcount.org for many years of data using our search vehicles. Therefore, all the years of the hawk watch under Bill's direction and when we were primarily the ones up there too, are available to the public. Here is a slightly different form of report showing the mechanics of things as recorded: