Hawk Watch (3/30/2) It was probably my best day on the tower at Magee this past Saturday. I was there from 9:00 A.M. to 3:30. The birds started arriving about 9:45, and the activity shutdown at 2:15. There were five counters on the tower during the entire time. We counted about 370 turkey vultures, about 100 red-tailed hawks, about 50 red-shouldered hawks, about 40 sharp-shinned hawks, several American kestrels and nothern harriers, and a couple cooper's hawks. There were several kettles of turkey vultures containing 25-50 birds. At one point there was a group of 10-15 raptors overhead consisting primarily of red-tails and red-shoulders, but in the mix was an immature bald eagle, a northern harrier, and a sharpie. There were a lot of immature and adult bald eagle sightings, but I considered them to be local birds. One or two imms could have been migrating.

The weather at 9:00 A.M. was cloudy with temperatures in the upper 30's. By noon, the skies were mostly sunny with temps around 50. Winds were out of the southwest at 10-15 mph.