March 7: Here along the Lake Erie shoreline in n.w. Ohio, we get good hawk flights in spring mainly on days with southwest winds. With any kind of south winds, or with warm calm weather with good thermals, the hawks will be moving on a broad front, but they won't concentrate anywhere. Southwest winds push the birds up toward the lake shore, and they then correct and move west-northwest paralleling the shore, aiming for the west end of the lake where they can turn and go north into Michigan.
Today we had southwest winds but they were evidently too strong for a lot of the migrants. With winds of 30 mph, and stronger gusts, there were probably no thermals rising anywhere, and the smaller hawks that were flying seemed to be having a tough time of it. I spent a while at midday watching from the observation platform at the corner of Krause and Stange Roads (west side of Ottawa NWR) and saw very little flying. (Well -- lots of debris, leaves, etc., flying on the breeze, but not many birds.) Continuing west to Maumee Bay State Park, I counted 220 Turkey Vultures in an hour and a half, but only small numbers of other hawks (just a few Red-shouldered and Red-tailed hawks, Northern Harriers, and a couple of American Kestrels). Even the Turkey Vultures were rocking in the wind, and the other birds were having a tough time. I'm inclined to think that ideal conditions would have lighter winds, perhaps 15 to 20 mph from the southwest.
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