WPBO - Hawks and Migrants

Went over to the point today with Kirk Zufelt. Despite being fairly warm in the parking lot, the hawk tower proved yet again that it is the coldest place on the point. The winds were pretty strong from the SE, which stopped most hawks from crossing, so they bottled up near the point. There were some decent numbers, plus I added a couple new ones for the year and got a few decent shots. My first-of-season (FOS) Yellow-rumped Warbler (about 10 days early!), Eastern Phoebe, American Tree Sparrow and Fox Sparrow (about a week late) were also at the point, and the phoebe turned out to be a new bird for my WPBO list! #195, only 5 more to go to the 200 mark! After the hawks stopped coming through the point, we headed out and cruised the back roads south of the Sault, adding Eastern Meadowlark among others, but mainly boosting the numbers of individuals for the day. As always, the day list is below, with my SSM year birds in bold. Numbers of species are picking up, maybe I'll beat last year's April total?

Cackling Goose - 2
Canada Goose - 20+
American Black Duck - 10+
Mallard - 60+
Bufflehead - 4
Common Goldeneye - 10+
Common Merganser - 15+
Sharp-tailed Grouse - 17
Great Blue Heron - 1
Turkey Vulture - 12
Bald Eagle - 7
Northern Harrier - 15
Sharp-shinned Hawk - 50+
Northern Goshawk - 1
Red-shouldered Hawk - 1
Red-tailed Hawk - 20+
Rough-legged Hawk - 60+
American Kestrel - 8
Merlin - 3
Sandhill Crane - 150+
Killdeer - 5
Ring-billed Gull
Herring Gull
Rock Pigeon
Mourning Dove
Downy Woodpecker - 2
Eastern Phoebe - 1
Blue Jay
American Crow
Common Raven
Black-capped Chickadee
White-breasted Nuthatch - 2
American Robin - 200+ easily - some groups of up to 30 birds
European Starling
Bohemian Waxwing - 7
Yellow-rumped Warbler - 1
American Tree Sparrow - 10+
Fox Sparrow - 1
Song Sparrow - 10+
Dark-eyed Junco - 20+
Snow Bunting - 40+
Red-winged Blackbird - 15+
Eastern Meadowlark - 2
Common Grackle - 30+
Brown-headed Cowbird - 40+
Red Crossbill - 3
Common Redpoll - 100+
Hoary Redpoll - 1
American Goldfinch - 2 at my feeders

Number of Species: 49