Okay Folks, let's keep it CLEAN!!

Okay.  You’ve just spent a substantial chunk of your life scouring the skies for birds, taking careful systematic counts of everything you see.  (For some of you, we’re talking hundreds of hours spent in one place!)  The daily forms for each count day are in your possession, the data is submitted to HawkCount, and all the original paperwork is filed away for safekeeping.  Mission accomplished!  But wait!  Just how “clean” is your data?

Most veteran hawkwatchers I know pride themselves on the quality of their fieldwork.  They’ve developed their ID skills after years of practice, and putting a name with reliable ease to most every raptor they see is something they have every right to be proud of.  But at the end of the day, what happens to all those paper forms with the tiny boxes of numbers they’ve scrawled all over them?  Does your hawkwatch have a procedure for handling data?  If it doesn’t, I implore you think seriously whether it might need one.

I raise this issue now as the end of spring hawkwatching season draws near, because I’ll admit I’m easily impressed by the large stack of count sheets presently on my desk.  After all, I worked hard to collect nearly all of that data, and I try very hard to be a careful/conscientious counter.  But an integral part of the job of counting hawks is to see that the data collected can actually be used, and for this to happen, it must be correct!  And for it to be correct, it must be checked through thoroughly, line by line, to see that the paper forms are faithfully transcribed electronically to HawkCount.  So these count sheets on my desk are not yet a finished product, despite appearances to the contrary.  I’ll admit that this is possibly the least glamorous aspect of counting hawks I can imagine, but it’s of paramount importance to the science side of it.  And I think it’s much too easy, especially in this age of nearly realtime HawkCount posting, to come back at the end of the day and quickly bang out the day’s results for all your eager fans waiting to see them and be done with it.  But after spending a full day on the hill, you’re probably tired.  You can barely see straight!  And now you’re going to take aim with your mouse and cursor at more little boxes on your computer screen and expect perfection.  This is unrealistic.  I don’t care who you are, you’re going to make mistakes!  And this, too, is part of the job of counting hawks.

So I’d like to make a special request of you: if you don’t already, make a point to take as much pride in the correctness of your data as you do in your skills at identifying birds.  Whether you audit the data yourself at a later time or designate someone willing (and able) to do it, just ensure that it gets done.  And if you must do it yourself, try to approach it with fresh eyes rather than a mind clouded by fatigue, which is why it’s almost always a bad idea to try to audit the data yourself the very day it was collected.

My personal ritual is to export the submitted data from HawkCount as an MS Excel worksheet (ask your site coordinator to do this for you if you don’t have direct access to your HawkCount profile), and then I’ll tote my laptop with me down to a coffee shop that offers free wireless internet.  In the midst of a caffeinated buzz while wearing headphones to cloud out the surrounding din, I’ll step through the spreadsheet on the computer cell-by-cell while tracing through the stack of daily forms sitting before me with an index finger.  (I imagine it might be entertaining to watch me work!)  My preference for coffee shops with WiFi is twofold: a) it’s perfectly acceptable in many coffee shops (e.g., Starbucks) for one person to spread out his paperwork and things all over a table for several hours at a time and only order a few soy Café au laits, and b) having internet access means I can correct errors on HawkCount as I discover them, and also allows me to take breaks and screw off a little when my eyes begin to glaze over.  Admittedly, coffee houses are not cheap in an absolute sense.  But we’re not talking about making them a daily habit.  We’re talking about spending $10 on your pleasure as an *investment* in the quality of your count data, and this begins to look especially cheap given the amount of time you’ve already invested in counting birds.  (And if coffee is not your thing, do what you can to make the job slightly more pleasurable/rewarding if you find the task as monotonous as I do.)

So getting back on track: accurate counts are at the core of what we do.  Do what you possibly can to make sure they really count!

Good Hawkwatching,
Arthur

Afternoon of the Condor

Southbound.  California Highway 1, along that spectacular piece of our planet called Big Sur.  This particular February day was sunny with some ocean haze screening really good looks at Grey Whales migrating just off-shore.  We stopped frequently to admire vistas, examine flora, search for geocaches and, of course, look at birds.  Raptors can abound along the steep slopes bordering the eastern side of the road, and that day we saw numerous Red-tailed Hawks of various color morphs.  There were Kestrels, a few Cooper's Hawks and a Sharpie.  But we kept our eyes on the high ridges, scanning for The Prize of the Day.  We'd had reports that three California Condors were being frequently seen along a particular stretch of Route 1, soaring just above the ridges.  Every once in a while a distant Turkey Vulture would cause our hearts to skip a beat, but as the day wore on, we began to think we weren't going to be lucky Condor-spotters.

We had stopped at a sizeable pull-off opposite a deep canyon which led up toward the high country of the Ventana Wilderness.  No soaring condors in the sky above the fire-scarred peaks.   Turkey Vultures.  A couple of Red-tails.  A Cooper's. We debated going "just a couple more miles maybe?" versus turning and heading back north.  Suddenly a bright white splotch high on a very steep wooded slope above towering ledges caught my husband's eye.

California Condors, Big Sur February 2012
from video clip; Susan Fogleman all rights reserved

Condors!  Three of them!  Two appeared to be full adults, and the third looked a little younger. Nearly a half-mile above us they were perched on a dead redwood trunk that had lodged among its neighbors when it fell. As we cheered our good fortune, we saw one of the adult birds open its wings, and next thing we realized it was standing on the back of the other adult.  Mating California Condors!  Elated, we watched, photographed and filmed the birds for almost an hour as they preened, changed positions on their perch, and basked in the afternoon sunshine. During that time we observed the adult birds copulating three times.  We were able to share our telescope views with many people who stopped to see what we were looking at.  

For recent information about the Condor Recovery Project and the efforts of the Ventana Wildlife Society check out the newsletter Ventana News and also click on links you can find there.  According to the VWS  condorblog as of April 25 this year there were seven nests in central CA, at least 5 were still active, and two of those have nestlings. I'd like to think that one of those chicks is the offspring of the birds we saw that February afternoon.

photo by W. Fogleman  2/2012

Spring Hawk Migration Studies is out!

The spring issue of Hawk Migration Studies is mailed and should have reached all members by now. If you are a member and haven’t yet received your copy, please contact Daena Ford at redtail@rochester.rr.com so we can investigate.

The spring issue has many great articles this time around, including one from Arthur Green about fall hawk counting in the Republic of Georgia, the disappointing 2010 fall season at Illinois Beach State Park by Janice Sweet, an analysis of 10 years of winter raptor surveys by Greg Grove, a summary of the latest trend information from the HawkCount data and the Raptor Population Index and, of course, all the flyway reports.

Don’t forget about the other ways you can find out about HMANA and hawk news either. Our website is http://www.hmana.org/. There, you can check out the discussions on the hawkwatchers’ forums. You can also find us on Facebook. Members (and HMANA friends) may also be interested in our email newsletter that’s sent every other month. If you don’t receive the newsletter, please contact Daena Ford to be added to the list. And there’s also BirdHawk where you can receive the daily HawkCount entries in a digest format. Visit the link for information about how to sign up.

What School Won't Prepare You For

"Training is useful, but there is no substitute for experience!"

It isn't just a memorable statement by the evil Colonel from one of the few decent Bond films made (From Russia, with Love), it's the most fundamental element to good hawkwatching. With spring raptor migration now in full swing at my watchsite, I'm routinely asked by inquisitive and frustrated visitors alike how they can get better at IDing hawks. They seek information about the “diagnostic” fieldmarks for particular species. They ask for book recommendations. They even ask about the optics I use, as if oversized milspec binoculars and a fancy spotting scope were indeed the secret ingredient in my hawkwatching recipe. (Answer: Good optics minimize visual handicaps, but they won't identify birds for you!) I am always grateful for people's interest in hawkwatching (and raptors, generally), so I make a point to try to helpfully answer any and all questions I receive. Subconsciously, I think I try hard to recreate some of the conditions that enabled me to start watching hawks seriously at my old hawkwatch. It was there a particular counter patiently answered endless questions and made an unflagging effort to drill my fledging skills over the course of my season with him. It's not often nascent enthusiasm is met almost immediately with personal tutelage by a skilled hand, and so I owe him a great debt. He unknowingly started me down an avenue in my life I never anticipated!

But back to the topic at hand, what's most striking about the questions I receive has nothing to with the actual questions. (Because there are no “stupid questions”!) It's that I generally receive them from enthusiastic visitors who'll spend, at most, 40 minutes or an hour on the hill with me maybe twice or thrice a season. I'll take a leap of faith here and assume that I'm not functioning as the main impediment to their learning process or enjoyment on the hill. And, I do understand that Life has a nasty habit of getting in the way of even the best intentions of making recreation for oneself. But within most of the questions I receive, I can almost hear the underlying assumption that one can learn to ID hawks proficiently by simply reading a book (or two) or by getting pointers from a “pro” in the field. There are indeed some excellent books about the field identification of raptors available, and some of them are quite accessible. And, undoubtedly, guidance in the field by a skilled observer is a sure-fire way of improving your skills relatively quickly. But the most neglected component is time: the only way you become naturally good at identifying hawks is by spending an unnatural amount of time in the field watching them! And I think that while most of my visitors understand this cerebrally, it's a different story viscerally when it comes time to pony up and put in your hours on the hill that day scanning for hawks instead of engaging in another more familiar activity.

I offer my views here not to be harsh to my kind visitors, but to be realistic about the effort that will be involved in learning to hawkwatch “like the pros” do. In no way do I wish to deter anyone interested in watching hawks from doing so at their own pace! Frankly, I feel that the only people who really oughta know what they're seeing are the people whose observations become part of the data submitted to HawkCount. For most everyone else, it probably does not matter if they cannot separate a Red-tailed Hawk from a Sharp-shinned Hawk in the field. If this applies to you, I hope you will learn, however, only because I feel it will greatly increase your appreciation of these birds to have seen and identified them for yourself. But upon reflection, if you feel the effort to learn to ID raptors and "become part of the count" requires more effort than you're willing to invest, that's perfectly okay, and I hope you won't let birders pressure you into thinking otherwise. And I hope you won't be dissuaded from coming to your hawkwatch just because you don't feel you know enough! I think this happens more often than anyone cares to admit, and I think this is the biggest travesty of all. Ultimately, hawkwatching needs you, whether you're expert or neophyte. And the majesty of the migration spectacle is there to be enjoyed and protected by all; and this is probably the best “pro” tip you'll ever receive!

Good Hawkwatching,
Arthur

The Grey Hawk and the Garrobo

“Wow!” exclaimed my husband, one afternoon as we sat quietly reading on our terrazzo. We lived in a small town on the Pacific coast of Mexico this past winter, where we were treated to the daily sights of raptors not seen in our New England area. Zone-tailed Hawks, Short-tailed Hawks and Grey Hawks were among those that frequently passed over our house, giving us views and photo-ops of those species which, while quite common there, are still novel enough to us that we stop what we’re doing to admire and study them.

This “wow” moment was triggered by the arrival of a Grey Hawk onto a branch of a tall palm at the edge of our garden. We watched as she (we guessed the bird was possibly a female due to her large-ish size) quickly side-stepped along the main stem of the big frond, and disappeared into the central cluster of branches at the top of the tree. We wondered if perhaps there was a nest, or a nest-to-be. The next afternoon she was back, sitting for a while out in the open before once again retreating into the cluster.



When we saw her arrive a third time she remained perched on the central stem of one of the stouter fronds, and seemed to be staring down at us, or at something fairly nearby.

I had seen the occasional small lizard darting about in the garden, but nothing that I guessed would tempt a predator of the size of our grey visitor. No ground squirrels were in our neighborhood, and the only nest I could see was that of a Cinnamon Hummingbird above our patio steps. And then we realized that we hadn’t been seeing “Garrobo.” Garrobo is the colloquial name of the black spiny-tailed iguana, which can grow to over a meter in length. Nose to tail tip our particular garrobo was maybe 30 inches. He daily basked on the terracotta tiles roofing a small outbuilding at the edge of the garden, and we had been watching him each day as he adjusted his position according to the sun angle. This shed was below a certain tall palm tree. The day we realized we hadn’t seen him was the day after our last visit from the Grey Hawk.

Could a Grey Hawk take a garrobo? Was this a coincidence? A few days later a garrobo was again basking on the roof of the shed. We’ll never know for sure that it was the same garrobo which had maybe hidden away during the visits of the hawk, patiently waiting until she found a meal elsewhere. Whatever the case, we never saw the hawk return to our yard.

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Photos by W. Fogleman



It's Time for RAPTORTHON!

Spring has sprung, and it is time for another HMANA Raptorthon! Now in its third year, this fundraiser is fun and entertaining way to raise money and awareness for raptors and hawkwatching across North America. Some teams have already signed up and picked their dates for their big day. Consider forming a team of your own to support your local hawkwatch and HMANA.

This year my team, Braddock Bay Raptor Research (BBRR), will hold its Raptorthon on May 12, which falls during the latter part of the spring raptor migration. For the third spring in a row, we will attempt to count the most raptor species we can from the Braddock Bay hawkwatch, located on the southern shore of Lake Ontario. Last year BBRR earned the accomplishment of having counted the most raptor species out of all the teams that participated, and we hope to do it again! We were proud to have doubled our funds raised last year, and we were able to use the money to help build a new display board for our hawkwatch platform. This year our goal is to raise enough money to cover a sponsorship for our Hawkcount.org page, and to help cover our housing costs for our hawkwatcher.

Because the month of May is a great time to see Bald Eagles ring migration at Braddock Bay, this year’s Raptorthon event has taken on an eagle theme. BBRR will be holding several eagle related programs and activities for this “Eagle Day” including observation time with a live bald eagle named Liberty, who is an educational ambassador from the Institute for Environmental Learning in Hilton, NY. There will also be eagle crafts and activities for our younger visitors. Of course there will be hawkwatching, and there will also be a chance for people to “adopt” hawks that are banded at our raptor banding station.

There are many ways to conduct a Raptorthon, and you don’t need to be an experienced hawkwatcher or even have a favorite hawkwatch to do so. BBRR takes advantage of the fact that we conduct a spring hawk count and can utilize the beautiful Braddock Bay Park which is easily accessible to participants. Our goal is not only to raise much needed funds for our site and HMANA, but to also reach out to the community and share the enjoyment and importance of hawkwatching as a whole. A great thing about doing a Raptorthon is that you can create one to suit your needs. Visit HMANA’s website at http://hmana.org for Raptorthon ideas, or to make a pledge to support the team of your choice.

Daena Ford

Co-Director, Braddock Bay Raptor Research

Membership Secretary, Hawk Migration Association of North America

Hawkwatching As Meditation

I’m occasionally reminded how unusual hawkwatching really is as a subculture of the birding world, to say nothing of society itself. Many of you probably find it as difficult as I do to fully explain to the uninitiated your compulsion to spend so much time in a single spot, looking for birds. As a counter, I hear it all too often, “Don’t you get bored up here?” But I don’t. This is not to say I don’t experience more than my fair share of boredom, especially on slow, hot, windless days where the world almost seems in stasis apart from the sun creeping a slow arc across the sky. (Or slow, cold days, for that matter!) But to say I am bored, generally speaking, even when firmly mired in a string of slow bird days, would be completely incorrect. Put simply, the questioner assumes motivations on my part that would not be sustainable in the long-term if they were my only reasons for going out to watch hawks. It’s not just hope for strong flights or rare species that keeps me coming back up the hill each day, because I’d probably spend many of my days there disappointed if that were so. Instead, I rarely ever feel more keenly alive, if you will, as when I’m out hawkwatching. And one of the reasons why is because hawkwatching, for me, is as much about a certain reverence for the passage of time seen most obviously in the change of the seasons. To stand in a single location for so long is to witness Magic, firsthand; a single location can exhibit an astonishing spectrum of personality throughout the year, one that is usually missed unless one is willing to stand there, receptively, and become part of what you see. The confluence of birds, foliage, and cloudform can be intoxicating! And I think anyone with loyalty to a particular hawkwatch, even one that might not command mind-blowing end-of-season figures most years, probably knows, at least subconsciously, what I speak of.

If all this is too “New Age” for your tastes, I apologize! But for so many of us, even those entrenched in analyzing the vast amount of data that hawkwatchers produce each season, I believe that there is an almost spiritual underpinning for our passion, one core to our reasons for spending some slice of our lives doing this and not some other activity. With many spring sites now online and posting daily to HawkCount, I find myself with a bit of Zugunruhe as I prepare to depart to the Midwest US to conduct my own count. Or, perhaps, it’s really just a twinge of envy for those hawkwatchers fortunate enough to have counts that start earlier than mine. In any case, my feeling is not logical, and I suspect I’m not the only one who feels this way. So I share some of my feelings for why I do what I do should you have the same yearnings each year to use your time at your favorite hawkwatch to take in as much of the world around as you possible; and, if only for a moment, to see past many of the expectations we impose on ourselves and simply Enjoy.

From all of us at HMANA,
May spring bring you spirited flight!