Eighteen hawks counted today is not much, but hey - still fifteen better than yesterday! Throughout the day, redtails kept coming up to the point, only to turn around for another try. On north winds (or later, northwest) there is just no way that they will cross the 17 mile gap across Whitefish Bay to Ontario.Falcons on the other hand will cross the bay on any wind, no problem. Two Merlins were seen doing this today, and a Peregrine Falcon was first spotted perched on a snag before it took off and went on its way too.
At the time of writing, not many hawk watches have yet posted their totals for today on hawkcount.org, but it's interesting that several count sites that already have, also reported both falcons.
Interesting non-raptor sightings today included both waxwing species, both crossbills, both redpolls of course, and three small groups of Sandhill Cranes, for a total of 11 cranes.
We dont usually put our data up as we are volunteer hawk watch and in the spring time there are not as many people. All I know is I saw on the 23rd a merlin and on the 18th we had a juvenile tundrias peregrine!
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