HMANA's Counting for the Future Conferece - A Success!

On October 13 and 14^th, some of HMANA’s biggest raptor enthusiasts gathered at Audubon Greenwich in Connecticut for two days of raptor presentations, field trips, and all around great discussions on hawk watching and raptor research .

Personally, as HMANA’s Monitoring Site Coordinator, I spend a lot of time emailing and talking with site leaders and hawk watchers throughout the year, but this is one of few opportunities each year to actually interact face-to-face with many site representatives and HMANA supporters. The Conference in Greenwich offered just that for others, too – a reunion, of sorts, a chance to catch up with friends old and new. Attendees included everyone from first-time conference goers to those who wouldn’t dream of missing one.

There was something for everyone! We had a really nice array of presenters – covering current research and education efforts around New England and across the map. To name a few, we learned about golden eagle tracking and the potential risk from wind power development, osprey telemetry efforts and exciting new data on their migration, navigation, and mortality. We heard about current kestrel nestbox programs in CT, saw-whet banding in MA and Red-tailed Hawk Natal Dispersal in NY.

Education was a major theme of the conference and we were lucky to have so many inspiring educators speak about their programs and how they engage all age groups with raptors – in both the classroom and the field.  We heard about using raptor banding as a way to connect with special education students, the use of nest cams in society and how to transform people into supporters, repeat visitors, and eventually informed constituents and conservationists.  The education panel discussion covered lots of issues including best ways to connect people to nature.

 

During the regional hawk watch session we had an opportunity to hear about eight New England sites across the Northeast. Site Coordinators discussed everything from staffing and fundraising to raptor migration trends. It was valuable to see how sites are both so different and so alike, and to learn about what works well and what doesn’t.

Field trip destinations included such famous locations as Lighthouse Point Hawk Watch, one of the falcon capitals of the Northeast, and the Chestnut Ridge Hawk Watch in nearby New York. Throughout the weekend, people popped out during conference breaks to visit the Quaker Ridge Hawk Watch a few steps outside the Audubon Center for some hawk watching. Among the observations for the weekend were plenty of Accipiters, high streaming Buteos on the move, and two Golden Eagles.  Snow Geese and a possible Ross’s Goose were highlights for some observers, and songbirds were spilling south in loose flocks throughout the weekend.

A personal highlight and undoubtedly one for many attendees was keynote speaker, Pete Dunne. Always a treat to hear, Pete took us on a trip down memory lane, sharing stories from his 36 years of hawk watching, as well as some interesting insight about the future of hawk watching – the theme of this very conference.

If that wasn’t enough, we also had a great array of table displays from local organizations and booksellers, live birds from the local rehabilitation center and a chance to try out some binocs and scopes from Swarovski, a sponsor of the conference.

Thank you to everyone who took part in our Counting for the Future conference; presenters, planners, volunteers and attendees. Folks at Audubon Greenwich did a fantastic job hosting the conference; from handling the technical computer setup to food prep. They kept everything running smoothly all weekend long.  I left the conference feeling inspired and refreshed about the work HMANA continues to do thanks to its many dedicated members and contributors. The future of hawk watching is bright, indeed.

Season Record for Peregrine Falcons set at Florida Keys Hawkwatch

Congratulations to Florida Keys Hawkwatch –the new Peregrine Falcon “capital of the world.” On October 16 at 14:49 Peregrine #3220 was tallied for fall 2012, breaking the previous seasonal record of 3219 set in Kekoldi, Costa Rica, in 2004.

By the end of the day, the new season total at Florida Keys stood at 3242. And yesterday (October 17) the site on Little Crawl Key added 27 more Peregrines, so their current total stands at 3269, at least until today is over.

Along the way to this historic number, the site also broke its own previous high daily count for Peregrines, tallying 651 Peregrines on October 10. The previous daily record was 638 set on October 11, 2008 at the site, which was then named Curry Hammock.

Along the way to both the season high and the high daily could total were several multi-triple digit Peregrine counts, starting with 113 on October 5, and followed by 237 on October 6, 155 on October 7, 230 on October 8 and 318 on October 9.

The count at Florida Keys runs until November 13, so the new high seasonal number for Peregrines will only continue to grow. Congratulations to everyone at the site!

Hazel Rocks and Wedding Bells Ring!

Those who keep up with the fall migration reports from the various "hotspots" around the continent might recognize the familiar sign-off phrase from the Corpus Christi watch:  "Hazel Rocks!"  Dane Ferrell and Libby Even have been the count leaders at Hazel Bazemore (Corpus Christi Migration Project) for several years now.  With soaring spirits and hearts they have counted several hundreds of thousands of hawks passing the site.  And Hazel (the affectionate nickname for the site) indeed rocks during fall migration.  So far this season over 225,000 individual hawks of 23 raptor species have been counted there.  The highest numbers by far are provided by the huge kettles and streams of Broad-winged Hawks heading toward their wintering grounds in Central and South America.  Dane's and Libby's clickers kick into overdrive as they concentrate on the counts.

Broadwings streaming from a kettle over Hazel Bazemore County Park

Along with small kettles and streams of Mississippi Kites and smaller numbers of Swallow-tailed Kites, Hazel's skies also yield some great views of south Texas "specialties," such as White-tailed Hawks, Harris' Hawks, Crested Caracaras, along with the occasional but regular Zone-tailed and less-regular Short-tailed Hawks. The second half of Hazel's season sees increased numbers of Swainson's Hawks.  Check  www.hawkcount.org for more information on the counts from Corpus Christi.

It was on the watch platform (worthy of another essay another time!) that Dane and Libby brought the migration day to a close on the twenty-second of September this year.  Earlier in 2012 an email had announced "Save the date!"  Friends of the couple from as far away as England and the west coast, convinced that Dane was a confirmed bachelor, rejoiced at the happy news.  So on September 22, surrounded by family members and their many hawkwatching friends, Libby and Dane were married.  As the ceremony began, the last of the day's migrant Broad-wings settled into the trees for a night's rest.

In a magical moment acknowledging the miracle of migration and their own soaring hearts and spirits the couple released over a dozen monarch butterflies into the air. Some immediately flew skyward while others came to rest on the bride's bouquet where they remained as the newlyweds left the platform.  Best wishes, Libby and Dane.  Hazel rocks!

Broad-wings!

Congratulations to Hawk Ridge MN for their 16,135 count on September 10. They counted 15,204 Broad-winged Hawks and 130 Bald Eagles, as well as 608 Sharp-shinned Hawks and 87 American Kestrels to reach their total. Included also were 7 Swainson's Hawks.

In the east, many sites posted numbers in the several hundreds, including Quaker Ridge CT, 959; Waggoner's Gap PA, 633; Militia Hill PA, 522; Franklin Mtn. NY, 475 and Holiday Beach ON, 418, to list just a few. 

HMANA on Twitter! One more way to track raptors this fall

There has been a lot of talk amongst hawkwatchers over the years about finding better ways to stay in touch while hawkwatching and how to share up to the minute reports on what’s being seen across the network of sites. Well HMANA is happy to report that we are officially taking the Twitter plunge and we have a hawkwatcher to thank for helping us make it happen!

A message from hawk counter, Luke Tiller:

Sitting at the Quaker Ridge hawkwatch a few season’s ago, I had an idea of setting up a ‘live’ hawkwatch update service. The thought reoccurred to me after getting a call from a New Jersey watch south of us today and spurred me to discus implementing this idea through HMANA. I’m sure I’m not the only hawkwatcher to wonder how we could better be in touch with other counters across the country and to have the facility to access ‘live’ reporting of what is happening at other sites, whether it is big flights or interesting birds. Beyond collecting tens of phone numbers (and then spending important watching times to call those) I thought that a little modern technology might be able to help us accomplish that.

Twitter seems like the obvious tool for this sort of thing and discussing it with a few friends, my thought was that we could create a dedicated hawkwatch Twitter account that could be used by watchers to put out details of what they were seeing during the day. Lots of us now have smartphones or web access at our sites which would allow us to access this kind of information and the kind of reports one would want to send would fit perfectly into a short tweet format. E.g: CT, Quaker Ridge, 9/5, 12:15pm 1 Swainson’s Hawk (juvie dark morph) heading SW
This one account would mean there was a central location for people to read live reports of what other watches were seeing. Any legitimate counter (paid or volunteer) who wanted to participate would be given the username and password to the account so that they could post to it.

If you are interested in being able to post your sightings send an email to hmanahawkwatchne@gmail.com to get set up. You will be sent a password for the Twitter account username hmanahawkwatch and you’ll also get a posting protocol guide. If you only want to read the feed, just go ‘follow’ hamanahawkwatch on Twitter.

 We are in the process of testing this but hope to make the feed available on the HMANA Facebook page and website in the near future (for those Twitterless people). With big Broadie pushes just on the horizon it seems like the perfect time to kick this off!

 

August Wrap-up - Bring on September

September is now upon us, and every hawkwatcher hopes for top-notch results at his or her favorite spot. But just for today we’re going to take a last look at the August hawkwatching results to see how those ended up.

Despite poor weather throughout much of the east, several sites posted some good numbers in what was largely a lackluster month for most sites this year.

Rockfish Gap VA doubled its count hours this year and then posted high August numbers for several species. Perhaps best of all were 36 Bald Eagles, compared to the previous August record of 14. Other species also benefited from the increased time at the site, especially Osprey, American Kestrel and Sharp-shinned Hawk.

Corpus Christi TX came oh-so-close to breaking its August record for Mississippi Kites. They ended up with 20,064, just 800 off the 2007 August record of 20,833.

A hearty “welcome back” is due to Smith Point TX, which had been closed for a few years. They counted for several days in late August and ended up with nearly 6000 Mississippi Kites and 183 Broadwings.

Hawk Ridge MN counted 737 Broadwings in August, which is at least their highest total in the past 12 years.

Hawk Mountain Pa tallied 12 Merlin in August, the highest total since at least 1995. With 75 years of records to look through, I didn’t go back the whole way.

Waggoner’s Gap PA also set two August records, one for Broad-winged Hawks at 363, just inching past 1999’s August record of 359, and another for its 3 Merlin (previous high of 2 in August)

Hawk Cliff ON saw a lot more Broadwings and American kestrel than they usually do in August. They had a record 162 kestrels, boosted by a thoroughly impressive result of 112 on August 28. The next day, a total of 137 Broadwings helped to boost the month’s total of that species to 174, and that looks alike another high tally for August.

And now it’s on to September, and for all of us who spent time on an eastern ridge, let’s hope for some better weather to bring us some more hawks!

Fall hawk migration - late August

About the middle of August as I was looking at the early season hawkwatch results, many of the sites were posting decent numbers for early August. I remember thinking that if the results continued at the same rate, most of the eastern hawkwatches were just about one good day away from posting nice August results. Unfortunately, that was not to be. Now it’s the end of the month, and while Hawk Ridge MN has some nice numbers, the eastern hawkwatches have pretty ugly August results.


First, let’s look at the good news. As of August 28, Hawk Ridge had posted its third best August ever for Broad-winged Hawks with the highest total of the little buteo since 1998, which had 719. They may have a shot at that second best August Broadwing total over these last few days of the month but likely aren’t going to reach 1977’s 1031. Hawk Ridge also counted the season’s first Northern Goshawk on August 20 and currently have a total of 4. That result isn’t an August record, but it’s close. The rest of the species have not fared nearly so well.

When I say the eastern hawkwatches aren’t having a good August, what I mean is that many are posting results that are half of their best results. American Kestrel seem particularly low pretty much everywhere, but everything from eagles to ospreys to Sharp-shinned Hawks were also counted in very low numbers.

Weather is to blame, of course. In the east this August has been untypically rainy and foggy after a blistering hot and dry July. Nice cold fronts have been in short supply. August hawkwatching is always a bit chancy, so let’s look at the bright side and hope that a poor August means a super September is only a few days away.