![snow daze 1976 snow daze 1976](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/71WFXbbO8yS._AC_SX425_.jpg)
Leaving Lutz to his public, we drove to Buzzard Roost, a field fringed with bare trees and rapidly turning white. A cold front, which had arrived just before we did, dropped the temperature by more than 20 degrees. I've never seen them so active as early as this." That was in the morning, when the temperature was in the balmy sixties. "Birds were going up 15 or 20 at a time all morning. He assured both callers of the buzzards' return. I've got field glasses that'll pull in Toledo." While we were talking to him, Lutz took a phone call from a radio station in Missouri (live on the air) and another from a reporter in British Columbia. I was too busy preparing for the Buzzard Day Festival to get down there." Then, with a grin, "Anyway, I don't look up till the 15th." What about Leap Year? Are they early? What if there's a big storm? Aren't they late? "Well, we have some problems. Told me there were buzzards flying around the ledges and I'd better come down. It's the earliest I've seen them in the 12 years I've been the official spotter." Had they really flown in today? "Channel 43 called me yesterday. Roger Lutz at the Ranger Station across from the entrance to the Hinckley Reservation, and he was happy to answer my question. We had driven from Maryland to see the buzzards fly in, but they had beaten us to Hinckley, arriving early that morning, on schedule as usual. The festival features a pancake and sausage breakfast at the Hinckley Elementary School, with a live buzzard as the star attraction.
![snow daze 1976 snow daze 1976](https://di2ponv0v5otw.cloudfront.net/posts/2019/12/25/5e0405d92414839d36bf127e/m_5e0405e7fe19c7fe4153b012.jpg)
Hinckley honors this perfect attendance with its nationally known Buzzard Festival, whose tone is set by the comical logo designed by Al Capp. The birds have been recorded as returning on the same day every spring since 1934. A local legend explains that buzzards were originally drawn to the area in 1818 by the Great Hinckley Varmint Hunt, which left piles of enticing corpses lying around. Hinckley Lake and the layered sandstone ledges in this suburb of Cleveland provide ideal conditions for the sociable birds to nest and raise their young. After all, what makes Capistrano's swallows more intrinsically valuable than Hinckley's buzzards? Every year, on March 15, the turkey vultures (commonly known as buzzards) return to the Hinckley Reservation from points south. Our Maryland friends had hailed our "mission improbable" with hilarity, but we were (almost) serious. My friend Lou called across the snowy field, "Did Audubon really start this way?" It was March 15 and we were looking for buzzards on Buzzard Day in Hinckley, Ohio. I was standing as close to the fire as I dared. Snow melted on my cheeks as I scanned the empty sky with binoculars.