Yesterday afternoon from 3:00 to 4:30 pm I was in the parking lot across from the sledding hill at Maumee Bay State Park. The Sharp-shinned Hawks were migrating at eye level. Several went right-over the hood of my car. All nine were immature birds along with one Cooper's hawk. I also had three Red-tailed Hawks, and over 12 Turkey Vultures. At 4:02 pm, I noticed a group of five Turkey Vultures migrating by me and only about 100 feet in the air. The last bird was being attacked by a Bonaparte's Gull and it wasn't rocking in the wind like the others. I decided to look closer at the vulture and suddenly noticed that it was pushing its wings in a slow, down motion; unlike the other 4 birds. Its dihedral was only slight and its wings bowed down slightly towards the tips. The color was very dark brown over all and it never rocked in the 30+ MPH wind. My God, it was an adult Golden Eagle, my first of the year! If it hadn't been for the Bonaparte's Gull attacking it, I would have counted it as a Turkey Vulture as it was right-in with them. I will check groups of vultures more closely in the future. The pond across from the parking lot by the bathhouse had a medium sized flock of Ring-billed Gulls on it and as the Sharp-shinned Hawks came across at eye level the gulls went crazy. I noticed several loud ear-piercing screams that didn't seem like gull cries at all. What on earth was making these noises? So I decided to sneak behind the bathhouse and look-out at the birds along the shore. Many gulls including Bonaparte's and Ring-billed Gulls were on the edge of the water standing in the sand. Then I saw them, eight Caspian, five Forster's, and one Common Tern. Suddenly the lone Cooper's hawk came across the pond at about 50 feet high and all the terns and gulls flew-up and started screaming. Birds were everywhere in the sky. The five Forster's Terns actually flew-out over Lake Erie and only one came back about 20 minutes later. I also had 4 species of swallows in the area; Tree, Barn, N. Rough-winged, and Purple Martins. Today at the Black Swamp Bird Observatory we had one of our Wetland Investigation Network (WIN) school programs. Fifty Perrysburg High School kids learned about and assisted with the banding of two Virginia Rails, a male Ruby-crowned Kinglet, the Myrtle race of the Yellow-rumped Warbler (in the west the Myrtle's cousin is the Audubon's Warbler), a huge male Common Grackle, an immature male Red-winged Blackbird, a Hermit Thrush, Tree, Song and White-throated Sparrows, and several male American Goldfinches. One of the students was so enthusiastic about birds that our director gave him a Black Swamp Bird Observatory sweatshirt for free. How cool is that. Kim Kaufman saw two Brown Thrashers at the Magee Marsh Wildlife Beach carrying nesting material into the shrubby area. Kim also saw Eastern Towhees, Hermit Thrushes, and Yellow-rumped Warblers along with lots of Bonaparte's Gulls. The beach area yesterday had over 30 Bufflehead and lots of Lesser Scaup and a few Ruddy Ducks despite the rain and sleet. Final note: The John F. Gallagher Walking Trail behind the Black Swamp Bird Observatory building has lots of American Woodcocks displaying in the evenings if anyone still wants to see them. Later birding fans, Chris Knoll Education Director Black Swamp Bird Observatory ______________________________________________________________________ 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]