Most hawks don’t want to fly over Lake Mendota, so their northward migration sometimes gets concentrated on the south side of the lake at the 1918 Marsh (next to the Picnic Point parking lot), particularly during the last two weeks of April. On April 23, 2022, for example, Jon and Mike counted more than 700 high-flying hawks migrating around the lake there. But with unfavorable conditions, there might not be any migrants, in which case we will look for other birds.     

Mike and Jon have spent thousands of hours monitoring spring and fall raptor migration from Maine to Montana at places such as Cape May, Hawk Mountain, Hawk Ridge, and the Bridger Range just outside Bozeman. They will offer tips for IDing hawks in flight, often at a distance.