Saturday's hawk watching - Saturday marked four out of four where my hawk watching duties had southerly winds. Saturday was also the warmest day in months, with temperatures rising into the low to mid 60's. The raptors didn't get going unti after 11. I stayed until about 4:00. I left at 1:00 for Turtle Creek, but there was already a counter there, so I went back to the tower. For the 9-3 period the count was: 39 Red-tailed Hawks, 19 Red-shouldered, several Cooper's, about a dozen Turkey Vultures, one or two Harriers, one Kestrel, and five Rough-legged Hawks. Two of he RLHAs passed through while I was at Turtle Creek. I did have nice views of two of the three RLHAs I saw. One was a nice dark morph, and the other was in between dark and light. One of the Cooper's buzzed the tower. It came out of the east trees at tower height, and went right over my head. If I had jumped, I might have touched him.

There were a lot of birds moving, including several thousand Red-winged Blackbirds and a lot of ducks. Birds flying by the tower included: Wood Ducks, Pintails, Mallards, Common Mergs, a group of five Swans (not mutes, no green bands), Bluebirds, Robins, Grackles, Starlings, Killdeer, Cedar Waxwings, Am. Black Ducks, Eastern Meadowlarks, a few Am. Crows, a couple Tree Swallows, Northern Shoveler. The one group of Pintails that flew over contained ~30 birds.

The marsh, Lake Erie, and small streams were still frozen. In the small opening of water by the nature center there were Ring-necked Ducks, Scaup, Gadwalls, and several Hooded Mergansers, which are cool looking.

The skies had zero cloud cover all day. The sky was very dry and bright blue. In the afternoon, the raptors were higher and tough to spot and tough to stay on in the blue sky. The temperature at 9:00 A.M. was 5 degrees Celsius, warming to 10 C by 1:00 P.M. There was little wind. It was from the south-southwest at 5 mph, which is unusual when it's that warm in March. Normally the warm weather at this time of the year is accompanied by 20+ mph winds.

The good bird movement and nice weather wasn't the only thing that made Saturday special. Around 2:00 P.M., I turned around and there was Mom and Dad reaching the top of the tower. I didn't know they were coming up. Within five minutes, my wife and step-daughter pulled into the parking lot. My parents decided to get out the house, since it was a nice day and drive three hours to Magee Marsh. After working at the church all morning and after lunch, my wife figured I would still be on the tower after my 9-12 hawk watch duty was over, so she came out too.

My wife and Dad got to see some hawks and ducks. The girls also walked and drove around Magee. Ottawa NWR had an open house driving tour, so we did that around 4:15. It took over 30 minutes to complete the drive, which was nice. We saw an adult Bald Eagle perched in a tree by a nest. We saw what looked like the head of another eagle in the nest. Could be incubating eggs.

I drove out to the beach to check out the frozen lake. There are a lot of big piles of snow in the Crane Creek parking lot. I couldn't tell if it was from plowing or drifting or both. I'm not sure why they would spend a lot of time plowing the beach parking lot in February. Anyway, access to parts of the parking lot were blocked by these big walls of snow. Even with the warm weather, it will take a while for that to melt.

After our driving tours, we all ate dinner at a family restaurant in Oak Harbor, since that was on the way home for my parents. We had a nice time. It was a good day.