Hello All, This is a fantastic time of year to get out and do some early-season raptor nest searching. In particular, Red-tailed Hawk nesting activity is in full swing right now. With just a little bit of effort, their nests are often pretty easy to spot while driving down rural roads or even major highways. Only 2 hours of driving some country roads over the past 2 days, I came across 5 active nests. Fortunately, these were spread over 4 different atlas blocks, and I have a bead on another possible nest in a 5th block in south Columbus. All I need now is a good vantage point to determine whether or not it's active. Here are a few nest searching tips: 1. First and foremost, BE SAFE while driving roads looking for nests. Avoid extensive searching along busy roads. It always helps to have extra eyes in the vehicle while driving roads but if it's just you, actively search for nests only when you're on less busy roads. Also, only stop along roadsides when you feel it is safe to do so. 2. Searching before leafout is key. Red-tail nests can be bulky structures and they really stand out if the tree that they're in is backlit. 3. When in doubt about a potential nest, check it out anyway. Until you get a really good look, you'll never really know. Some nests may not look like much, especially if they're in a woodlot that's 500 yards from the road. 4. If you have access to a spotting scope, use it. Again, many nests might be placed in woodlots that are very far from roads. Also, incubating birds often hunker low in the nests and scopes help make peering eyes and the tops of heads much more visible 5. If you find a nest close to the roadside, don't linger for extended periods of time and view the nest from a distance. This should allow for the least amount of disturbance to the birds during this sensitive time. If anyone needs topo or aerial photo maps of the blocks they want to search, just let me know and I'll send them right out. Good luck out there! Aaron Boone Ohio Breeding Bird Atlas II School of Environment & Natural Resources Ohio State University 210 Kottman Hall 2021 Coffey Road Columbus, Ohio 43210-1085 Phone: (614) 247-6458 www.ohiobirds.org/obba2/ ______________________________________________________________________ Ohio-birds mailing list, a service of the Ohio Ornithological Society. Our thanks to Miami University for hosting this mailing list. Additional discussions can be found in our forums, at www.ohiobirds.org/forum/. You can join or leave the list, or change your options, at: http://listserv.muohio.edu/scripts/wa.exe?LIST=OHIO-BIRDS Send questions or comments about the list to: [log in to unmask]