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.

As of November 11, and according to hawkcount.org, overall numbers look good in 2025 at Pack Monadnock and outpace the number of hawks counted in 2024. It may be noted, however, that 2025 numbers are below the several years prior to 2024. With the official count season ending there on November 20, Pack Monadnock will end up with about 8,500 hawks counted for the fall.

The term hawk is used somewhat loosely here as the count includes hawks, eagles, ospreys, vultures and falcons. The hawks are counted by experts and volunteers who sit at the peak of Pack Monadnock and watch the birds soar in from the north. I’ve been to several hawkwatch sites and am always amazed at the skills of the official counters. They see and identify most of the birds long before the bird is even in view of most other people. 

Before reading on, can you guess what hawks are counted the most? Hint: One bird stands head and shoulders above the rest in terms of sheer numbers. Another hint: It’s not the red-tailed hawk, which I assume would be many people’s first guess. 

That bird is the broad-winged hawk. Of the roughly 8,500 birds counted at Pack Monadnock this fall, nearly 6,000 (5,821 to be precise) were broad-winged hawks. A distant second is the sharp-shinned hawk with 1,133. 

Simple math (even though I used a calculator) shows that broad-winged and sharp-shinned hawks account for more than 80 percent of the total birds counted. The number drops sharply again for the third-most-counted “hawk,” the turkey vulture, with 222 individuals counted. 

For all you stat geeks out there (like me), the next birds in line are American kestrel (196), Cooper’s hawk (190), osprey (167), bald eagle (159), red-tailed hawk (154) and northern harrier (121). Remember, these are not final numbers, but they will be pretty close.

Although “only” five golden eagles were counted, I’m sure each one elicited some oohs and aahs from the crowd. 

According to hawkcount.org, a page that aggregates hawkwatch sites across the country, a few New Hampshire schools performed mini-hawkwatches this September. Concord School District did a week-long program and counted, you guessed it, mostly broad-winged hawks. Turkey vultures were also counted in fairly high numbers.

Interlakes Elementary School in Meredith did a two-day count and found an impressive 1,350 broad-winged hawks, including 1,257 in a single day. Sharp-shinned hawks and turkey vultures were the next highest counts. 

The aptly named Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton, Pennsylvania, is perhaps the most well-known hawkwatch site in the East. Similar to Pack Monadnock, broad-winged hawks were the most numerous, accounting for 9,015 of the 13,436 overall birds counted. Sharp-shinned hawks were next with 1,530. 

If you missed this year’s hawk counts, mark your calendars for next year. You don’t want to miss mid-September, which is when the number of broad-winged hawks peaks. More than 3,000 broad-wingeds were counted on September 14 at Pack Monadnock. The conditions must have been right just on that day. October is a good month to see a variety of species, while things start to slow down by November.

The end of hawkwatching season means that winter is right around the corner. Winter may bring out a bah humbug from many, but it is also a great time for birdwatching, just in a different way.