Slow days still

This Red Crossbill was in a group of 6 that hung around the hawk platform for most of the day.

Still not much in the way of hawk migration over Whitefish Point, with yesterday nada and today only slightly better with two Bald Eagles. In its second week now, the count currently stands at 56, while many other spring hawk sites have already had hundreds of birds.

Is this normal?

Well, yes actually. Numbers at Whitefish generally start picking up towards the last week or 10 days of March. Last year, for example, the running total on the 22nd of March was even less, 44 raptors. The last week of March generally brings the first wave of Bald Eagles, some Red-tailed Hawks, and smaller numbers of most other raptors, including Golden Eagles.

A warming trend towards the middle of the week and southerly winds on Thursday should turn things on, depending also on how much rain comes with it.