Hawk watch fogged-in - Not much happened yesterday during my hawk watching from the tower at Magee. After three straight days with high temps of 65-70 under sunny skies, yesterday's temperatures were in the low to mid 40's during the morning with a lot of fog. The winds were from the northeast at five miles per hour. Visibility at 9:00 A.M. was about 150 yards. I could barely see the nature center from the tower. By 10, visibility only improved slightly. By 11, visibility was about a mile.

The only raptor I saw was a local immature Bald Eagle that flew low over the tower just after Noon while I was leaving. It was too foggy to observe other birds flying about. The marsh is still frozen. The small opening near the nature center is a little bigger. Before the warmup, the opening was about 50 feet long and maybe 40 feet wide. During my first four visits to the tower this spring, there would be over 100 Canadian Geese in and around the opening. There must be more open water somewhere else or the Geese just moved on, because yesterday, there were only a handful of geese hanging around the opening. Without the geese, it was much quieter.

There were several male Hooded Mergs in the small water opening. They were chasing and fighting with each other. It was comical. Sometimes the feathers in their heads would be collapsed, so only a small sliver of white could be seen. Then they would flare their head feathers, so it looked like a baseball was attached to their head. They were shaking their heads back and forth and doing all kinds of funny gyrations, like standing up on the water. There were a couple female Hooded Mergs present.

There was also one American Coot. Sometimes he was in the water and sometimes he was pecking around on the ice. I heard a Fox Sparrow sing. I saw an American Tree Sparrow. Other usuals were singing. That's about it.

The best part was having CP with me. She's on spring break. She spent a little time reading in the nature center, but most of the time she was on the tower with me. She kept busy dancing or exercising. It was just the two of us, so that was fine. I had my radio with me. On the way to the tower, we stopped and got Krispy Kreme doughnuts and iced molasses Archway cookies. We each had two doughnuts and we ate all of the cookies. So we junked out, chatted, and laughed. That was the most fun I've had on a northeast wind day.

Weekend hawk movement at Maumee Bay
From an e-mail sent to me by a birding friend, who was on the tower with me on Saturday until about 4:00 P.M.
----------------------

I went to Maumee Bay after leaving Magee and it they were still moving until 5:00
Yesterday's count @ Maumee Bay:
shoulders-86
tails---------84
golden------01
coops-------14
sharpies---06
kestrels----04
balds--------04
cranes------09

Today's count @ Maumee Bay:
approx. 850 hawks
shoulders-96
TV's-----------600? and 100+ uncounted roosting in trees for tomorrow
Lapland Longspurs-7400
Woodcocks------------15?
2+ hrs. of continuous Blackbirds including one flock of 50,000+

Needless to say Maumee Bay was very good this weekend

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.

Orange terrorist alert level - Prez was on TV this evening, giving Saddam 48 hours to leave town. Maybe this will be on the 48 Hours TV show hosted by Dan Rather, since he interviewed So Damn Insane a while ago. Anyway, this evening the government raised our terrorist level to orange from yellow. This could make for an interesting problem for the BSBO and their passerine spring migration banding study at Navarre Marsh, which is on Davis Besse nuclear plant property.

A couple of Saturdays ago while on the tower hawk watching, two other BSBO hawk watchers told me how the BSBO may have to band somewhere else if the terrorist alert level goes to orange. When it went to orange in early February, the BSBO was prevented from entering Navarre Marsh, due to tightened security. Passerine banding begins in mid-April. Maybe it will be lowered by then, but that's only four weeks away. One alternative banding sight the BSBO is considering is Ottawa. I was planning on helping with the banding program this spring. They have their little training day towards the end of April.

Birding in Rossford - I birded at Rossford Island View Park for a little over an hour around midday today. Temps were in the 60's with light winds and sunny skies. I saw a few TUVUs soaring when I pulled into the parking lot. I saw a Cooper's Hawk while in the park head towards Grassy Greek. There were a lot of birds singing, including several Juncos with their unrefined trills. If they took lessons, Juncos could sound like Chipping Sparrows. Speaking of sparrows, I saw the following at RIVP today: Fox, Song, Am. Tree, and White-throated. The river around RIVP was frozen last Friday, but today it was open with ice flows. In the river was Ring-necked Ducks, Common Mergansers, Mallards, and Canadian Geese. Gulls were flying around of course. (Damn, there was just now a helluva loud explosion outside in the distance.) Anyway, I believe the rest of the birds were the usuals. Multiple Carolina Wrens were singing.

Most of the snow is now gone. There is still some snow and ice in the shady areas. I also saw a couple chipmunks running around, and I saw a medium-sized butterfly, burnt orange with dark spots land on a limb. I haven't checked the butterfly book yet to see what it was. I think I saw a bumble-bee flying around too.

New nature center at ONWR - There was a ground-breaking ceromony last Friday morning. Here's the Blade article. "$1.95-million Visitor Center that will provide a gateway for the public to education and information about Ohio’s remarkable, internationally recognized wetlands refuge complex. This year work will focus on planning and design, with construction set for fiscal 2004 and occupation and use in fiscal 2005. The new center is to be built near State Rt. 2, just west of the current entrance to the main refuge. The present entrance-road off Route 2, straight but unappealing, will be relocated to the west, passing the new center and gracefully winding its way into the refuge. The Ottawa center is to have an educational and multi-purpose community focus."

And in other ONWR news, "In addition to funding the visitor center, Congress also allocated $600,000 to Ottawa for additional land acquisition under a long-range plan. It allows for expansion of the nearly 9,000-acre complex by up to 5,000 more acres. Acquisitions would come only from donations or willing sellers. The land-purchase money comes from the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund, which derives revenues from offshore oil leasing."