Hi Tweets,

I'm working in Anchorage this week and noted that the Matsu Audubon Society
did a hawk watch 2 hours north of Anchorage near Palmer last weekend, so I
decided to check it out.

The snow is still in large piles up here and not a speck of green can be
seen anywhere, but there are definite signs of spring. The front page of
the Anchorage Daily News was kind enough to show a picture of the first
couple of Canada Geese to show up in the local park and even made mention
of the hawk watch. So with 15 hours of daylight to work with (gaining by
+5 minutes a day), I drove up for an evening of hawk watching in 50F sunny
weather - with no wind!

The amounts of birds coming through were a surprise in the hour and a half
that I had to watch:

42 Harlan's Hawk - dark morphs (which included every shading from
intermediate to black imaginable)
4 Harlan's Hawk - light morph
2 Rough-legged Hawk - dark morph
5 Rough-legged Hawk - light morph
2 Golden Eagle
1 Bald Eagle
2 Northern Harrier
and not a single Western Red-tailed Hawk!

The bonus bird landed on top of an adjacent spruce tree at eye level - a
Northern Hawk-Owl, to complete the Alaskan hawk watch thrill.

As the number of hawks dropped with the setting sun, I started chatting
with the gentleman tallying the hawks and received my second surprise of
the evening - the watcher was Bill Clark of raptor fame. He evidently has
a particular passion for Harlan's Hawk and was visiting to enjoy the
migration and talk with the local Audubon group.

An impressive evening for an impromptu bird excursion.

Marcus Roening
Critical & Supportive Care
Tacoma, WA
marcus.d.roening at gsk.com
C: (253) 988 8313