Finally Made it to HAWK MOUNTAIN

Oh, and I finally wrote a new blog!  I decided that for the sake of more frequent blog posts that short stories are ok as long as there are nice pictures to look at, right?  Anyway, I am going to tell the story of the wonderful weekend that Alex and I had in eastern Pennsylvania over the weekend.

View of a Bald Eagle from the North Lookout at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.

I have been talking about making a trip to Hawk Mountain Sanctuary for years now. For whatever reasons, I have been travelling less than I used to so I don't just snap my fingers and go (far) anymore.  To make this trip happen though, I promised my very special lady friend that I would take her somewhere, and we all know that you can't break those promises!!  Thanks Alex for indirectly making me get to Hawk Mountain ; )

You can find information on the Hawk Mountain website, but to briefly summarize for those of you who don't know about this magical place in Kempton, PA - Hawk Mountain is a wonderful mountain top lookout along the Appalachian flyway for migrating raptors.  Thousands of raptors fly over the lookouts here every year while migrating south for the winter.  Basically the mountain range is a guiding path for the raptors that are travelling south for the winter.  The wind patterns have an effect with the mountians that create updrafts that are ideal for birds trying to expend minimal energy in their long journeys.  Some birds (Buteos) also depend on thermals created on sunny days during migration.  Between the mountains, winds, and thermals, Hawk Mountain is one of the best places to be to watch migrating raptors.

The best part about Hawk Mountain is that this amazing spectacle in nature occurs in such an amazingly beautiful place.  The views from the lookouts are simply stunning.  I did not know what to expect when I arrived, but Alex and I sure were pleasantly surprised.

The view from the South Lookout (which is not far from the visitor's center).

After we were done ooohing and ahhhing over our first look at the landscape, we jumped on the trail and hurried over to the North Lookout.  Passing a number of smaller lookouts along the way, we stepped over rocks and generally rough terrain.  It's about a mile hike to the North Lookout from the visitor center.  When we made it to the North Lookout, where the official raptor count is done, there were more than a dozen people situated among the rocks.  Many more were to show up as the day went on, there were probably 100 people at one point.  We were fortunate on Saturday (9/14/13) to have some nice NW winds which promoted raptor migration.  Shortly after settling into a spot with a nice view looking east where all of the birds fly from we had some encounters.  The first bird that we laid eyes (and lenses) on was this Accipiter:

An immature Sharp-shinned Hawk offered a close view early on. 

Sharp-shinned Hawks are smaller and slightly different proportionally to their close relatives, the Cooper's Hawk.  Accipiter is a genus of fast, powerful, forest-dwelling, bird-eating raptors of which three species are found in North America.  They can be identified from other raptors in flight by their flight pattern of quick, stiff wing beats followed by a short glide.  Proportionally, these birds have broad wings and very long tails.  "Sharpies" can be told from Cooper's by the squared tail, slightly curved leading wing edge, and less-protruding head.  Surprisingly, this distinctions can be made in the field as the birds pass by (sometimes close, other times not so close by).  Inevitably, some raptors will fly by as "unidentified Accipiter" when they just don't offer a good enough look, but most are identified as they pass.

Soon after seeing a few Sharpies, the Bald Eagles and Ospreys started coming through.  The Ospreys seemed to come one at a time for the most part, but some eagles were coming by in close proximity to each other, and this led to some action-packed dogfights in the air over the lookout!!  All of us spectators were very pleased!

Sorry for the poor quality, but I wanted to illustrate some of the maneuvers that we saw with the tussling eagles!

Unfortunately, my photos in general on the first day didn't come out as nice as I would have liked.  I think I was too busy playing with my new binoculars to do a better job ; )  Here is an example of how tough life can be for a bird photographer:

This photo goes into my "almost" folder...who can tell me what species this is?

Early in the morning we had many Sharp-shinned Hawks, some Bald Eagles and Ospreys, a couple Red-tailed Hawks, as well as some Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures.  As the day went on we started seeing Broad-winged Hawks.  These are small forest-dwelling Buteos that are highly migratory.  Broad-wings are often the stars of the show in early migration season where they have been known to pass over raptor counting stations with numbers in the tens of thousands during very large movements!!!  Can you imagine that?  We saw maybe 50 on Saturday.  Broad-wings migrate in groups referred to as "kettles" and they fly all the way to Central and South America every year.  Once determined to be a Buteo (genus), these hawks can be differentiated from other Buteo species by their wing shape and plumage patterns.

Although this is a terrible photo, I wanted to show what a Broad-winged Hawk flying overhead looks like.  Note the dark line along the rear wing margin and overall wing pattern, stout and pointed wings, and banded tail.

We met a new friend at the lookout, Dave from New Jersey, and it was great to have someone to share stories with and to experience the magic of Hawk Mountain together for the first time!  Dave was talking about how much he wanted to see a Peregrine Falcon because he read a great book where the author discussed the life of some of these magnificent birds, and he had never seen one.  Well of course Hawk Mountain delivered for him!  Sitting at the front of the lookout, a falcon came flying in hot!  Falcons are easily distinguished by their long pointed wings, and Peregrines look dark and have a stiff, powerful, duck-like flight. They also seem to be wearing a sweet helmet if you see the head well enough.  Shortly after the Peregrine, we also saw a couple American Kestrels, which are small falcons.  These can be differentiated from other falcons by their color, "mustache marks", small size, and more buoyant flight.

We left the lookout that day a little early around 4 PM and we had tallied eight species of raptors and two vultures.  What a great day.  Our plan for the next day was to get up early and try to reach the lookout before sunrise for songbird activity.  In the tent that night we listened to an Eastern Screech Owl, and woke up pre-dawn to a bunch of noisy Wood Thrushes for the second day in a row.  It was wonderful : )

We reached the South Lookout on Sunday a little later than planned, but thankfully there was still plenty of action in store for us!  Immediately after reaching the lookout, the songbirds were apparent.  I chose a nice spot on the rocks and my head was put on a swivel.  Warblers, Vireos, Tanagers, Grosbeaks, Wrens, and more were moving about like crazy all around us!  We struggled to get a look and identify everything.  The most abundant of birds were; Black-throated Green, Blackpoll, and Blackburnian Warblers, Blue-headed and Red-eyed Vireos, and plenty of Rose-breasted Grosbeaks and Scarlet Tanagers.  I am just getting back into serious bird-watching, so I was happy to have all of these fall migrants to test my identification abilities.  It is well known that fall warblers are among the toughest bird groups to identify due to the varying and dull plumages of most species, lack of call or song, and sometimes less than optimal looks that you get at the birds.

This Blackpoll Warbler is tough to identify in autumn, as they look similar to Blackburnian, Bay-breasted, Cape May and maybe others (depending on your experience level).  One trick to this species is the yellow feet, of which other similar species don't have.

Red-eyed Vireos have a nice dark eye stripe and a bluish cap.  In this photo you can clearly see the red eye as well.

A couple Rose-breasted Grosbeak youngsters who hung out near the South Lookout.

While the songbird movement on Sunday morning was excellent, there were almost no winds, so the raptors didn't really show up like they did for us on the previous day.  I had absolutely no complaints though because between the two days we were there we saw plenty!  Plus the view from the North Lookout was magical - we were way above the clouds.

The view looking east from the North Lookout.

Warblers and other songbirds kept coming by all morning (though they slowed down considerably from the early morning), but raptors didn't put on as much of a show.  We watched a few Sharp-shinned Hawks from far away, and lots of Turkey Vultures riding the thermals.  Broad-wing Hawks started coming through later in the morning, but they were cruising a different course than Saturday that was much further away.  Since we had such an amazing time and the winds were out of commission, we decided to leave the lookout at around noon that day.  We still had a  six hour drive home and it was back to the work week.  It turns out that the thermals were great and the afternoon hosted a push of some 500 Broad-wings over the lookout!  Ha!  We left early and missed it.  I honestly just laughed.  Like I said, we had definitely seen more than we could have expected on our first trip to Hawk Mountain, so it was a very successful venture.  I plan on getting out for more raptor watching this fall, whether its back to Hawk Mountain or somewhere closer like Michigan, I am hooked on bird-watching again so I must get back out!  If you get a chance to visit this magical place I must say that I highly recommend it.

It's wonderful to have a partner to adventure with : )

Literature Cited:

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary website: www.hawkmountain.org

Clark, William. and Brian K. Wheeler.  Hawks of North America field guide 2001.