Following our conversation from last Tuesday regarding possible hawk
watching sites in Ohio, Dan and I checked out the mall you were talking
about off of SR 184. We went up there last Thursday (11/2), but had nothing
but a longspur fly-over. The LEMP count was bad that day too. Then, we took
the Avids up there on Saturday (11/4) and had much better luck. Here's what
we saw between 1200-200 EST (west winds):
Sharp-shinned Hawk- 1
Cooper's Hawk- 2
Red-shouldered Hawk- 6
Red-tailed Hawk- 21
American Kestrel- 2
For comparison, here's what LEMP had that day (over 7 hours):
Turkey Vulture- 17
Northern Harrier-1
Sharp-shinned Hawk-4
Cooper's Hawk-7
Northern Goshawk- 2 (adults)
Red-shouldered Hawk-21
Red-tailed Hawk- 111
Rough-legged Hawk-2 (1 dark morph & 1 light morph)
Golden Eagle-13 (3 adult, 3 subadult, 3 juvies & 4 unk)
So, we picked up 25% of the sharpies, 28.6% of the coops, 28.6% of the red-shoulders, and 18.9% of the tails in just 2 hours. Multiplying that out over the 7 hour time frame indicates that if we would have been there all day, we should have picked up most of the birds that went through LEMP.
It looks like the mall may well be the best place on the Ohio side to pick up these birds as they move south, at least during west winds. Other wind directions have yet to be proven. Next fall, we should try to get some coverage of the area, especially during Swainson's season. Even if it was covered just three days per week, it should still be productive. Let's talk about this over the next 9 months or so to see if we can try to make this happen.
Thanks for the head's up on the site.
Joe