This past February, the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA) initiated the Winter Raptor Survey, a volunteer effort to determine winter abundances of raptors. The purpose according to the association’s website “is to get birders/raptor enthusiasts out in the field during the winter looking for diurnal raptors, and to provide those surveyors with a set of guidelines enabling them to record their observations in a standardized format.”
While 2007 was the kickoff year, birders are still being encouraged to make their own 30-100 mile route and record raptor species seen from this car route between November and March. Instructions and data forms are available on the HMANA website.
This is a great opportunity to get out for a nice drive and possibly see some of the rarer winter raptors such as Rough-legged Hawks as well as some of the other common species.
Monitoring in this way is a great conservation tool and the results will be published in the associations publication, Hawk Migration Studies.