Tom Bartlett's post about his sightings on Friday are an  indication of what
a skilled observer can see from the site even on a day when  the hawks aren't
showing off.  For those who aren't familiar with the area  (you really need to
get up here and check it out!) the tower is located on the  Magee Marsh
Wildlife Area, just east of the Sportsman's Migratory Bird Center,  on the road
into Crane Creek State Park, east of Toledo on St. Rt. 2.

Tom was lending his talents to a study being conducted  by the Black Swamp
Bird Observatory (BSBO). This long term study, done with  the cooperation of the
Ohio Division of Wildlife's staff at Magee, is in  its 15th year and is the
only spring raptor migration study conducted in  the western basin of Lake
Erie. This data fills an important gap in our  knowledge of raptor movement in the
Midwest during spring migration. The water  bodies and associated habitats
provide both thermals and prey to assist raptors  as they migrate.

The raptor  migration project is unlike most migration sites in that there is
no single  cliff face, ridge, or funneling point concentrating one flight
path. The project  utilizes sites from Sandusky, OH to Cullen Park, north of
Toledo along the  lake. Twenty-one locations are designated as count sites with
the tower at Magee  Marsh Wildlife Area serving as the control site.  The hawk
tower is manned  by personnel and volunteers seven days per week, with the
additional sites  manned when volunteers are available. These additional sites are
located  to account for falcons, which may fly the beaches and various inland
sites away  from the tower, to assess flight line movement with shifting
thermals as the day  heats up. Standardized time of count is 9:00  AM to 3:00 PM.
The study seeks to increase our  understanding of the movements of these
amazing winged travelers  and document their migration timing and marsh usage as
they pass through  our area.  Totals ranging from 7,000-14,000 raptors have
been counted  passing through the region during spring migration. Data from this
project has been  used for the Lake Erie Management Plan and for adding
additional points to the  value of land acquisition grants in the marsh region.
For more information on this, and  other BSBO research projects, please visit
_www.bsbobird.org_ (http://www.bsbobird.org)
Happy Birding (as if there's any other kind...)

Kim Kaufman
Education Director
Black Swamp Bird Observatory




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