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| The Hawk Ridge count team: Alex Lamoreaux, counter; Karl Bardon, count director and Kaija Gahm, count trainee |
When Hawk Ridge
Observatory was awarded HMANA’s 2015 Hawk Watch Fund to fund a
migration monitoring “count” traineeship, we were excited to hear more about it.
Well it’s mid-season
and it seems the position has been wildly successful so far. This year’s count
trainee, Kaija Gahm, Kaija is an enthusiastic and accomplished young woman who
is taking a "gap year" between high school and going off to college
at Yale. Among her other accomplishments, she has been a participant in the
Cornell Lab of Ornithology "Young Birders Event"; she has won the
Massachusetts (overall & Wildlife categories) and national (Wildlife
category) Envirothon; and she has been an active participant in E-bird and the
Massachusetts Audubon Bird-a-thon for several years throughout high school.
Kaija has been
involved in some fantastic days of counting at Hawk Ridge, including a day of
90,000+ songbirds on September 1. Karen Stubenvoll, Hawk Ridge Board Chair is
thrilled with Kaija. “It has really enhanced our count by having her here, and
we are so happy to be training the next generation.”
The goal of the count traineeship
is to provide a unique, hands-on, professional training opportunity for those
interested in learning the skills to conduct migration monitoring research. The
trainee learns identification of birds by both sight and sound for raptors and
non-raptors, data collection, data entry, public relations with visitors, and
other valuable research tools.
Here is a video clip of Kaija in action with hawk counter Alex Lamoreaux from the Duluth News Tribune.
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| Kaija scanning the sky for raptors at Hawk Ridge |
Hearing this story makes us very
happy at HMANA. This is what the Hawk Watch Fund is all about! We offer grants each year
to watch sites in the HawkCount.org monitoring network with the purpose of
providing grants to assist watch sites looking for support whether it’s
educational materials and displays, construction and maintenance of viewing
platforms, hiring hawk watchers, or purchase of equipment. Funding comes from proceeds of HMANA’s
annual spring Raptorthon and from direct donations to the Fund.
Sites may apply from December
1-February 15 and awards are chosen April 1. For more information on how to
apply, please visit www.hmana.org.
All photos by Karen Stubenvoll
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