Looking for lift in all the right places

Hey - my favorite time of year, fall! And one of my favorite activities - hawk watching.

If you have never looked for broad-winged hawks on their fall migration, then you won't appreciate the excitement this can build. I mean, you can see thousands of hawks in a single day. Or none. Or maybe 10. It all depends on weather, location, and what the birds have in mind.

Essentially, they look for a clear day with puffy white clouds so they can ride thermals up a few thousand feet, then glide south and when they get low, find another thermal. For the broad-wings, it's when they're in these natural elevators that we most frequently see them. First one, then two, then maybe a dozen or a hundred or more will find the same thermal. Such a crowd is called a "kettle" - I suppose because it looks like a boiling, confusing, jumble of hawks, all circling to stay in the rising column of hot air. I'll add, that frequently these are so far off that in the binoculars they are just pepper against a blue sky, yet still thrilling. In fact, the trick is to catch them at a distance, then follow them as they come on in.

Suddenly they stream out of the thermal in single file (as if the elevator stopped and the doors opened) and that's when the hawk watchers do their serious counting.

I'm not serious. I'm not good enough to be serious. But every fall between September 10 and 25 we will make at least one trip to a mountain top. We started on Watatic on the northern border of Massachusetts. That was when the climb up was shorter and not so strenuous. It's gotten much longer and steeper these days, so we go to Wachusetts where there's a road to the top and a crowd of hawk watchers.

Where are they going? Central and South America. The same destination, roughly, as the monarch butterfly. And you're pretty sure to see one or two of those making their way over the mountain as well, although their main migration tends to be a little later. (BTW - hawk watchers in selected locations in Texas and Central America sometimes have daily "counts" in the hundreds of thousands as that region forms a natural funnel for hawks coming from all over the north.)

Watatic gave us our most memorable day and it was really our first day of serious hawk watching. You're there for the broadwings, but sharpies, red tails, ospreys, kestrels, and even eagles come by. On that memorable day we saw eight eagles and about 2,000 hawks.

I didn't know what I was seeing then. Now I've got the hang of it, but I'm a bit timid yet to shout out my IDs. Still, you get to know how the different hawks fly. They are almost always too far away to identify by field marks. But behavior is another thing.

Watch these folks for a while and you really can begin to appreciate that the air is a fluid and they are just little ships that have learned to use it well. Crows row at a pretty steady clip. Broad-wings soar, twisting and turning as needed - then fold their wings and go into a long, swift glide. Turkey Vultures rock and roll with the wind with wings in an upward "V." Eagles are flat, majestic ironing boards that stand out for their size when in the same thermal with the crow-sized "wings." Sharpies come through with a flap-flap-flap glide, flap-flap-flap-flap glide, and merlins are fiesty little fellows looking to challenge anyone who enters their air space - which means anyone in sight. Kestrels tend to wander around, the way a dog crosses a yard. Other falcons are more business like, following the kind of straight-to-the-point path a fox leaves in the snow. The occasional osprey will be misidentified by some newbie as an eagle because of its white head, but they have that trademark crook in their wings. And harriers are all tail and with luck twist a bit when near and give themselves away with that white rump.

The best way to learn? get a pair of binoculars, watch the weather reports, and go do it. Listen to the old timersand don't be afraid to ask dumb questions - like where and what? The best weather? Have a week of on and off rain, then have a cold front come through. Hit the mountian early, pack a lunch, and stay all day.

I'll be on Wachusetts this year. I'm betting right now on 16-18th. Last year they had super days on the 17th and 18th. But things could change. Life doesn't come with guarantees - especially when it comes to finding hawks. Here are some Web sites that can help you out, however:

NorthEast Hawk Watch

Eastern Massachusetts Hawk Watch Their watch sites page is especially useful if you're from around here.

Want to know how many hawks of what types they're seeing at Wachusetts? Here's a day-by-day count. (Take a look at last year to get a feel for how it goes through the month. Pay closest attention to the broad-wing numbers. Abbreviated "BW" )

Posted by Greg Stone at September 9, 2003 03:47 PM