Tag Archives: hawkwatching

For the Birds: Inside the hawkwatch

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Photo by Chris Bosak
Young Cooper’s hawk in New England.

Last week’s For the Birds column highlighted the results of this year’s fall hawkwatches with a particular focus on Pack Monadnock in Peterborough. The column was heavily focused on data and the number of birds counted.

A number of questions came up in my head as I looked at the results and compiled the data. Not one to let questions go unanswered in my head, I turned to the experts for some explanations.

Specifically, I had an enjoyable chat with Phil and Julie Brown of Hancock, N.H. Phil is the Bird Conservation Director and Land Specialist at the Harris Center for Conservation Education. His wife, Julie, is the Raptor Migration and Program Director of the Hawk Migration Association.

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For the Birds: Breaking down hawkwatch season

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Photo by Chris Bosak A broad-winged hawk perches in a tree in northern New Hampshire, July 2020.

The fall hawkwatching season is winding down. Raptor sightings at the various dedicated locations are slowing down, with only a handful of birds counted each day as November progresses.

It’s a good time, therefore, to check in to see how the various hawkwatching sites fared this year. New England has several popular sites, but Pack Monadnock at Miller State Park in Peterborough is New Hampshire’s most active and popular site. The hawk count is a project of the Harris Center for Conservation Education in Hancock.

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Latest For the Birds column: Hawkwatching primer

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Photo by Chris Bosak An Osprey soars over the Norwalk River on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014.

Photo by Chris Bosak
An Osprey soars over the Norwalk River on Monday, Sept. 1, 2014.

Here’s the latest For the Birds column, which runs weekly in The Hour (Norwalk, Conn.), The Keene (NH) Sentinel and several Connecticut weekly newspapers.

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A September would not be complete without a bird column on the fall hawk migration. For many, the hawk migration is the highlight of the fall season, despite there being many other birding options this time of year.
It’s hard to blame those people who feel that way. You can’t complain about spending a sunny, crisp fall day on the top of a mountain or other open area looking for hawks coming down from the north. Pick the right day and you may see hundreds of hawks making their way to their winter grounds.
The trick for many people, including myself, is figuring out which hawk is which from such a distance in the sky. I have gotten better over the years but certainly not to the level of the experts at the popular hawkwatching sites throughout New England. The experts, who are trained in this sort of thing, know the identification of the bird long before I can even see it out in the horizon.

The other trick to hawkwatching is picking the right day. Weather plays a big role in the fall hawk migration. Pick a day with a steady southerly wind and you’ll likely see very few hawks. Which hawk wants to battle a stiff headwind to start a thousand-mile (or more) journey.

But, pick a sunny day following a cold Continue reading →