Good raptor movement on Friday 28-Mar-2003 - Here are the totals observed from the sledding hill at Maumee Bay St. park and from the parking lot near the hill. The winds were blowing from the S-SW at 20-30 mph with higher gusts and it was much more difficult to observe from the hill than from the parking lot. I observed/took notes from 10:00 to 2:30. The first hour was from the top of the hill.

TUVU 367
RTHA 53
SSHA 18
COHA 17
AMKE 11
NOHA 4

The raptors last Friday were all low, less than 100 feet. I'm guessing the strong winds had something to do with this. The TUVUs would skim along the ground, then pop-up, then back down. The accipitors at times were only a few feet above the ground. There was one exception where a few TUVUs were a few hundred feet up, and we almost missed them.

The winds on top of the hill were consistently over 30 mph. CP was with me, and the wind blew a paperback book out of her arm and down the other side of the hill. It was retrieved just fine. It was windy enough to let the body lean forward and allow the wind to hold us up. But it was hard to bird on the hill. I couldn't hold my binos still. We spent the first hour on the hill, and then we went down and birded from the parking lot across the street, where we had an open view. "We" being CP, myself, and a couple of guys I know: BZ and KM.