Rfalconcam Forum

For the past 40 years, Hinckley resident Chuck Vickers has spent one Sunday each month at Buzzard’s Roost in the Cleveland Metroparks Hinckley Reservation.

“You get a good breakfast and get to see all the people,” he said of the annual Buzzard Sunday! event. “And there is a contentment and peacefulness about being here — you can forget things for a while.”

Vickers was at this year’s Buzzard Sunday! with his wife, Sylvia, and 14-year-old granddaughter, Candice Kordich.

“I just like the experience,” said Candice. “Being here early, having breakfast, looking around and shopping.”

Vickers chuckled that while he has six more grandchildren, Candice was the only one who wanted to sleep over at his house in order to get to Buzzard Sunday! on time.

“The others didn’t want to get up early,” he laughed. “Living in Hinckley, you see buzzards all the time. In fact, I get a little nervous when I’m working out in the yard and I see one circling — like maybe he knows something I don’t.”

As he recorded the latest sighting of five turkey vultures circling lazily above the treeline at 9:51 a.m., Cleveland Metroparks Chief of Outdoor Education and “Official Buzzard Spotter” Dr. Bob Hinkle said this year’s birds certainly knew how to put on a show.

“It’s been a fabulous Buzzard Sunday,” Hinkle said, adding that the number of all migrating birds this season seems to be up.

“Things have maybe been warmer to the south and they are moving in more quickly,” he said.

Relatively warm and sunny March weather might have also had something to do with the healthy Buzzard Sunday! turnout of humans this year. Along with naturalist-led hikes, storytelling and musical entertainment, bus tours of the reservation, refreshments and buzzard-related merchandise, visitors were also treated to a live birds of prey program, hosted by Medina Raptor Center volunteer Annette Piechowski.