HMANA CONFERENCE 2014 – 40 YEARS CONNECTING HAWKS AND PEOPLE

Braddock Bay Hawkwatch Platform - Luke Tiller

2014 sees HMANA's 40th anniversary, and to celebrate we are holding our 40th Anniversary Conference: 40 years connecting hawks and people. The event will take place between April 25 and 27 at Braddock Bay, which is just north of Rochester, New York.

I was lucky enough to be counting at Greenwich Connecticut when we held our last conference in 2012 and so got to experience all the fun of the event from my home turf. Most exciting to me about Greenwich was getting to make connections with other raptor aficionados from across the country and beyond. Two years later I am still in regular touch with many of those participants and attendees and consider them friends made. That's not to say that there wasn't plenty else to enjoy including: a wonderfully humorous and passionate talk by key note speaker Pete Dunne, lively panel discussions, fun field trips and fascinating lectures. Though it will be a tough event to top, I am convinced next years event is lining up to be even better.

The conference next April already boasts two excellent keynote speakers in Keith L. Bildstein and Richard Crossley. Keith is the Director of Conservation Science at Hawk Mountain and is renowned in the world of raptor conservation for his wide ranging research and accessible publications. As well as being the author of the Crossley ID Guide series (including this year's well received Crossley ID Guide: Raptors), Richards driving passion is to promote conservation by popularizing birding and I say what better way to popularize birding than to promote the coolest birds going: hawks, falcons and eagles!

Happy Hawkwatchers at Braddock Bay - Luke Tiller

As well as the keynote speakers there will be panel discussions on a variety of relevant topics, lectures on everything from how the latest technology is informing our understanding of raptor migration to how to develop outstanding educational programming. Apart from the talks, there will be workshops on raptor photography from some of the leading exponents in the field, classes on raptor identification from the experts out on the hawkwatch platform as well as field trips to local birding hotspots. There will also be additional more extensive field trips out to nearby birding hotspots and points of interest including the Roger Tory Peterson Institute, Derby Hill and other nationally renowned sites like Montezuma NWR. All these events will be lead by expert local guides and it will also be a chance to meet the guides who lead for HMANA's national and international tour programs.

The festival also takes place the same weekend as our host organizations 'Bird of Prey Days' event, so other events over the weekend will include tours of the legendary Braddock Bay Raptor Research (website here) and Braddock Bay Bird Observatory’s (website here) banding stations, live bird of prey shows and opportunities to try out the latest optics and birding related products at the trade show among the myriad of other fun events.

The only way to count all the birds at Braddock Bay - Luke Tiller

If that wasn't enough to tempt you, the festival just happens to fall on the same magical date that has historically seen the two largest raptor flights in Braddock Bay Hawkwatches history: April 27^th. Of course if we do have days either like this or like this it might be hard to drag yourself away from the hawkwatch platform to see all the other amazing events. If you can't imagine what counting a 40k bird flight is like, here is my write up of the big day on April 27th 2011 on my blog (here) which was also published in HMANA’s Hawk Migration Studies magazine.

Some more information about the event can be found on the HMANA website (here).  Bookings will go live from early January so look out for notices online, via email and in our forthcoming journal. I'm sure you are as excited as I am to get booking - look forward to seeing you all in Rochester in April!

The Eagle has landed: 'southern' Bald Eagle dispersal in spring

Juvenile Bald Eagle - Joseph Stevenson

'Southern' Bald Eagle migration. It’s a phenomenon that spring hawkwatches, especially along the great lakes, look forward to for late season excitement. I distinctly remember my first major flight at Braddock on May 29^th 2011 when an incredible 94 individual Bald Eagles soared past me on the day – including kettles of eagles up to nine strong and an hour where 63 birds were tallied.

Though even relatively recently I have had experienced hawkwatchers question me about the veracity of the phenomenon, it was back in the mid eighties that experienced hawkwatchers like Frank Nicoletti started to note the occurrence of these flights. As the story was related to me, during his first seasons tenure at Braddock Bay Frank noticed that a lot of the late season birds they were seeing looked like small (see Bergmann's rule), crisp and extensively dark hatch year birds – unlike the bleached and worn juveniles one would expect to see if they had hatched the previous year. Apparently he stated immediately that he believed these were hatch year birds from Florida and other Southern States.

Juvenile Bald Eagle - Joseph Stevenson

During an average season one can view this kind of flight reflected on the HMANA Hawkcount website in May at Braddock Bay (for example). In fact these flights can often be seen moving over watches into June after the official end to the season at places like Braddock and Derby Hill and those eagles can often make up a significant percentage of those days flights (example here). 

Personally, whilst counting at Braddock, I had noted up that some of the birds arriving with the Broad-wings in mid-April also appeared to have this smaller, darker, crisp appearance. It seemed to me impossible that these could be southern birds though just due to the early timing, but they sure looked right for them. That, however, would mean birds, just a couple of months out of the nest, had made it the 1000-1500 miles all the way from Southern Florida up to Rochester; it just seemed too incredible to imagine.

Juvenile Bald Eagle - Joseph Stevenson

A little research though seemed to back up the possibility, as according to the USFWS Bald Eagle egg-laying can begin during October. Given a four and a half month cycle until fledging and then a few extra weeks spent around the nest that would seem to point to the potential dispersal of these young eagles during late March. To witness this early breeding in action you can follow the nestcam of a Bald Eagle in Southwestern Florida (here), you can also see updates on their exceptionally popular facebook page (here). The feed starts in just a day or two on October 1st.

These theories at Braddock got the support of some hard evidence this year for the first time. On April 13^th one of BBRR’s stalwart banders, Dan Niven, captured a Bald Eagle at the Braddock Bay Raptor Research main blind that was already sporting a band. This was exciting enough in and of itself, but when the report was received from the bird banding lab we discovered something incredible and important, that the bird had been banded as a hatch year bird on February 5^th down in Florida (coincidentally enough by ex-BBRR bander John Newhouse). Here was definitive proof that birds that hatched that same year in Florida could make it up to Braddock Bay by mid-April as part of their dispersal.

'Southern' Bald Eagles had initially been believed to be a sedentary subspecies until banders in Florida started to actively band them. Returns of these bands showed that these birds were heading north for the summer. Check out this awesome article (here) from 1947 that Rick Wright brought to my attention after reading this post. Note firstly how far north these banded birds were recovered: PEI, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and secondly, sadly, the number recovered dead after being shot (even though the Bald Eagle Protection Act had been passed in 1940).

Juvenile Bald Eagle - Joseph Stevenson

This northbound dispersal, to me, underlines the incredible feats these birds perform and just another reason to be in awe of them. If you want to come see some of these 'southern' Bald Eagles fly, come join The Hawk Migration Association of North America and Frank Nicoletti for their Raptor ID Workshop up at Braddock Bay in early April 2014 (link here) or for HMANA's 40th Anniversary Conference in the same location later in the month (link here).

Thanks to Joseph Stevenson for the photographs of the event.

HMANA 2012 Fall Conference - "Counting for the Future"

The Hawk Migration Association of North America is excited to present its 2012 Conference “Counting for the Future” hosted by The National Audubon Society at the Audubon Center in Greenwich, Connecticut.  The conference will be held on October 13 and 14, during peak migration season at one of New England’s oldest Hawk Watch sites, Quaker Ridge. 

To sustain and advance raptor conservation, “Counting for the Future” will seek to actively engage participants in bird conservation efforts, with a strong emphasis on educating the next generation of hawk watchers.  The conference will feature an array of scientific presentations, panel discussions, raptor identification workshops, and field trips to local hawk watch sites and birding hotspots.

Registration is open to all raptor enthusiasts!  Conference activities will begin at 8:00AM Saturday, October 13th and continue throughout the day. A social event on Saturday evening will be held prior to our keynote address. Activities will continue throughout the day on Sunday, October 14^th, and will wrap up at 5:00PM.

The conference will feature keynote speaker Peter Dunne, noted author, bird conservationist, Chief Communications Officer for New Jersey Audubon, and the Director of Cape May Bird Observatory. Sponsored by Swarovski Optik, Mr. Dunne will look back on his amazing career and highlight, in his keynote address “Islands in the Cloud Stream:  A Reflection on 36 Years of Hawk Watching,” the events and people that profoundly influenced his work.

A full program schedule will be available soon.  A handful of conference activities are listed below.

PROGRAM HIGHLIGHTS:

• Raptor Population Index Project Update – New North American Population Trend Results. Presented by Julie Brown, HMANA Monitoring Site Coordinator
• Osprey Satellite Tracking.  Presented by Dr. Robert Bierregaard, University of North Carolina
• Raptor Photography – A Seasonal Approach.  Presented by Steven Sachs
• Red-tailed Hawk Natal Dispersal at Braddock Bay.  Presented by Daena Ford
• Golden Eagle Satellite Tracking.  Presented by Mike Lanzone
• Bald Eagle Restoration in NY State. Presented by Mike Allen, retired Wildlife Technician from the NY Department of Environmental Conservation
• Raptor Education: Everybody’s Doing It.  Presented by Rodney Olsen, Special Education Teacher from Addison Central Schools in Vermont
• Using Raptor Nestcams for Educational Outreach.  Presented by Laura Erickson, educator & author
• Raptor Education Panel Discussion 

OTHER ACTIVITIES:

• Digi-scoping and optics demonstrations by Swarovski Optik
• Hawkwatching on site at Quaker Ridge Hawkwatch
• Hawk Identification Workshops for all skill levels
• Early morning bird walks on the grounds of Greenwich Audubon
• Live Raptors from the Sharon Audubon Center

FIELD TRIPS

Saturday, October 13 - Chestnut Ridge Hawkwatch, New York

Located in the southern foothills of the Taconic Mountains this hawkwatch sits at the highest point in The Nature Conservancy’s Arthur W. Butler Sanctuary, Bedford Hills, NY.  Chestnut Ridge has been operated by the Bedford Audubon Society for over 30 years. Season totals average 10,000 to 15,000 raptors of 16 species.  Just last year, counters tallied 9,655 Broad-winged hawks in a single day, which is more than a typical season’s count! 

Sunday, October 14 - Lighthouse Point, Connecticut

Located at Lighthouse Point Park, in New Haven along the Long Island Sound.  This hawkwatch is a coastal plain site which receives impressive numbers of falcons and accipiter in the fall season. 

Visit the HMANA Conference webpage for registration information.  Hope to see you there!  

NorthEast Hawk Migration Conference Saturday, April 2, 2011, in Holyoke, MA

The NorthEast Hawk Watch (NEHW) will hold its 9th Northeast Hawk Migration Conference in Holyoke, Mass., on Saturday April 2, 2011. Anyone with an interest in hawks is encouraged to attend. This is the 9^th conference organized by the NEHW since it was founded in 1971. NEHW held its first one-day conference on hawk migration in New England in 1978 and now organizes a regional conference every four years. This year’s conference was delayed a year so it did not conflict with the HMANA conference in Duluth last April.

The NorthEast Hawk Watch was originally founded as the New England Hawk Watch, to organize counts of migrating hawks over three weekends in the six New England states. Initially, the activity centered on western Connecticut and western Massachusetts, especially the Connecticut River Valley. Gradually, it spread throughout New England, and in 1991, it was expanded to the NorthEast Hawk Watch, including portions of eastern New York State and northern New Jersey.

The NEHW conferences offer a great opportunity for hawk watchers from across the northeast to get together to see presentations on what is happening with hawk migration in the region and talk with other hawk watchers. The conferences regularly draw attendees from as far away as southern New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ontario! Many attendees stay over Saturday night to bird hot spots in western Mass. and Connecticut on Sunday, before departing for home.

The program for the 2011 conference includes presentations on

• The Decline of the American Kestrel in the Northeast by Larry Fischer
• The Nesting American Kestrels of Manhattan Island by Robert DeCandido
• Stopover Ecology of Migrating Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks in the Central Appalachians by Laurie Goodrich
• Lazy Circles – An Approach to Counting Turkey Vultures in the Northeast U.S. by Arthur Green
• The Hazards of Hawk Watching by Susan Fogleman
• Mt. Peter – The Longest Running, All-Volunteer Fall Hawk Watch In The Country by Judith Cinquina
• Scenes from the BP Oil Disaster by Shawn Carey
• An extensive live birds-of-prey program by Wingmasters (Julie Anne Collier & Jim Parks)
• And More....

The conference will be held at Holyoke Community College in Holyoke, Mass., from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. For complete information on the conference, including registration, information on the speakers, directions, accommodations, and more, visit <http://www.battaly.com/nehw/conference>

The first forty registrants will receive a free one-page hawk calendar at the conference!

(Photo courtesy of Joseph Kennedy. All rights reserved.)

The Duluth HMANA Conference: Part 2

Usually I debate the real benefits going to almost any conference, professional or personal. The recent HMANA conference in Duluth was no exception. I wanted to do all the field trips and attend all the papers, but the schedule made that impossible. Fortunately, I decided to go, and ultimately I was very happy with my decisions, though I regretted missing several excellent presentations. (Funny what seeing a Great Gray and two Northern Hawk Owls can do.)

I heard some fascinating presentations at Duluth, several of which were on what we are learning through satellite tracking. Tracking studies have provided dramatic new insights into the incredible migration of shorebirds, such as Whimbrel and Bar-tailed Godwit, and this holds true for raptors as well. Two papers focused on satellite tracking of Bald and Golden Eagles that winter in the Upper Mississippi Valley. One paper revealed impressive variability in Bald Eagle migration and in their summer and winter ranges. I was also surprised to learn about the impressive number of Golden Eagles that winter in southern Minnesota and Wisconsin in habitat that I wouldn’t expect them to occur, and what these “winter Minnesotans” do on their spring migration. There is a lot of exciting field research in progress, and we at the conference were fortunate to hear these presentations well before journal articles by the researchers will be published.

Actively discussing this subject with several people at the conference, another benefit, I was reminded of a classic work, Sparrowhawk, by Ian Newton, which clearly shows that in one species, at least, breeding behavior and success for the average adult Sparrowhawk is not what you might expect. This monograph is a must read for serious students of hawks. Newton’s Population Ecology of Raptors is another “must read.” Finally, I would recommend Newton’s Migration Ecology of Birds, published in 2008. At 976 pages, you might need until the next HMANA conference to complete it, but it is the best, most thorough, single book on bird migration I’ve ever read. If you want to better understand bird migration, or just what we know about hawk migration, you should read Migration Ecology, a book jam packed with information and rich insights into bird migration. If I had one book on birds to take to a desert island where I would be stranded for the rest of my life, this would be it. (Note that Newton was the keynote speaker at the previous HMANA Conference at Hawk Mountain in 2007!)

When the next HMANA Conference is held, wherever that might be (probably in 2013), I’ll debate forking out the money and the time, and will decide to go. As has happened every time I have gone, I will be very glad that I did. I should note that HMANA volunteers and the staff and volunteers of Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth put on an absolutely first-rate conference. Thank you to everyone who helped to make it such a great event.

 
(Bald Eagle Photo by Robert Augart)

We wish you had been there!

What a great time! A huge amount of appreciation goes to the Hawk Ridge Observatory gang for all the work that went into hosting the event. The presentations were excellent, the field excursions awesome, and the opportunity to see old friends and make new ones all contributed to another successful HMANA conference.

The only thing we could have wished for was that you were there to share in the experience!

Look for an upcoming blog on field trips. And check out HMANA makes news .

Our keynote speaker following Saturday’s banquet was Dr. David Mech, Senior Research Scientist, USGS. You may have read some of his accounts over the years in National Geographic and other publications. He shared with us highlights of his 50+ year career as one of the world’s top wolf researchers. Why a program on wolves? You may wonder. Along with hawks and eagles, wolves are at the top of the food chain. Many of their prey are the same, and cycles which affect one tend to affect the other. Mech showed us some stunning photos and video clips. One such clip showing a connection between Golden Eagles and wolves was extracted from this excellent film . We're certain you'll say "Wow!" as we all did that night in Duluth.

Above: David Mech (Vic Berardi photo); Top: timber wolf track (S.Fogleman photo)