The Bradbury Mountain Hawkwatch begins!

When I was a young’in my Dad would take me up to two of Central New Jersey’s Hawkwatches: Chimney Rock and Montclair. There, I honed my fledgling raptor identification skills, and began to develop myself as a biologist. Friendships were made, conversation was had, and birds were tallied.

I have many fond memories of these days. Sometimes, my Dad would drop me off – especially as I got older, other times he would humor my interest and spend countless hours on wind-swept promontories in order to facilitate and encourage my interest. My first biology/birding “job” was as a volunteer assistant at the Chimney Rock Hawkwatch. My love of hawkwatching only continued to grow and develop.

Hawkwatches are unique birding environments. Very social in nature (Bird Watcher’s Digest even published an article of mine a few years back entitled the “Social Behavior of Hawkwatchers”, in which I discussed an experiment I conducted that equated the topic of conversation with the current rate of the raptor migration! By the way, if politics are being discussed, I found it safe to assume that there were no hawks in the air that day!). Outreach and education (sharing with people the joy of hawkwatching, and getting them to appreciate the birds – and therefore fostering a concern about protecting them; just like we’ve been discussing over the past few days) is combined with data collection. While the data from hawkwatching is rather subjective, and really only of value for long-term, broad-scale trend analysis, we have used it to document the rise and falls of some species. Long-running counts were documenting the decline – eventually linked to DDT – of Ospreys, Bald Eagles, and Peregrine Falcons, while today they continue to document these species’ returns. However, declines in Sharp-shinned Hawks and especially American Kestrels are now being detected – a signal that we need to look into this.

After graduating college, some of my many seasonal biologist positions were hawkwatches. Sandy Hook, NJ. Curry Hammock State Park in the Florida Keys. Cape May, New Jersey. Tussey Mountain, Pennsylvania. Whitefish Point, Michigan.

When I arrived at Whitefish Point, I met another “hawk head.” You know her now as my wife, Jeannette. Jeannette banded hawks for four seasons in Cape May and one fall in Veracruz, Mexico.

In other words, hawkwatching is very special to both of us. When we moved to Maine, we lamented on the lack of established, regular, full-time hawkwatches. Acadia National Park has one atop Cadillac Mountain, but that’s a tough day-trip for us (although our couple of visits there have been rewarding). Two years ago, New Hampshire Audubon began to fund the Pack Monadnock site. However, again, it takes an overnight trip to spend a decent day at that count site for us.

Here in Southern Maine, we have two bumps in the coastal plain: Mount Agamenticus in York, and Bradbury Mountain in Pownal. Both of these well-known hawk lookouts are regularly frequented by birders. Furthermore, for three weeks each year, a gentleman has volunteered his time and expenses to count for a 3 week period each spring at Bradbury (the geographical location of the hill, and the orientation of its summit overlook make this a “spring count site.” It’s less interesting – we think – in the fall. Jeannette and I have spent some time with Lionel in the past few years, and enjoyed his enthusiasm and dedication.

When Jeannette and I opened this store, we wanted to use it as a vehicle for supporting birding and conservation projects. One such “dream” was to sponsor a full-season hawk count. When my Dad passed away last year, I could think of no better way of sharing one of my memories of him by using a portion of my inheritance to start “our own” hawkwatch.

Therefore, Jeannette and I are pleased to announce that the Bradbury Mountain Raptor Research Project is now underway. We had a number of very qualified applicants, but the first person we had in mind decided to accept our offer. Lionel agreed to be our first ever Official Counter. He’ll be at the summit from 9 to 5, every day but Tuesday – when Jeannette and I will relive our glory days as hawkcounters! Beginning yesterday (3/20), the count will run through May 20th.

Although it will be a chilly start to our first full season, we hope to tally early migrants such as Bald Eagles, Northern Goshawks, and Red-shouldered and Rough-legged Hawks over the next couple of weeks. Counting through mid-May will allow us to better quantify migrants such as immature Broad-winged Hawks.

Yesterday was Day One. Lionel and I began the count (after catching our breath after carrying a table, chairs, scope, signage, storage, lunch, etc up the hill, post-holing through every step) at 9:15am. Two minutes later, I spotted the first migrant raptor: a light-morph Rough-legged Hawk passing right overhead, heading due north. What a way to start the count!

Light southwest winds (the best winds for migrant hawks at Bradbury Mountain in the spring, although south and southeast can be good as well. East and West aren’t always bad, but North and Northwest can make for long days!) were to be had for the first couple of hours. Surprising us both, we soon tallied 3 of the 4 species that we targeted by starting this early in the spring – Bald Eagle, Rough-legged Hawk, and Red-shouldered Hawk. But, as the wind slowly switched to the Northwest – and strengthened considerably – fewer hawks were on the move. With Jeannette keeping Lionel’s company in the afternoon – as we split the day between relaxing hawkwatching and work/housework/errands – we tallied a respectable 26 migrant raptors (and vultures, honorary raptors) by day’s end: 4 Turkey Vultures, 5 Bald Eagles, 1 Sharp-shinned Hawk, 3 Red-shouldered Hawks, 9 Red-tailed Hawks, 2 Rough-legged Hawks, 1 Peregrine Falcon, and 1 Unidentified falcon. Not a bad start at all!

So, it has begun. A full-time, full-season count site here in Southern Maine, with an official, “professional” counter. And, it doesn’t hurt that Jeannette and I live less than 3 miles from it! We look forward to sharing the wonders of the spring raptor migration over Bradbury Mountain with you, and we hope to see you atop "The Brad."

Check out the “Bird News” page of our website regularly for updates, and there’s a link to daily counts on our Bradbury Mountain Hawkwatch page.

On a completely different subject, a recent study seems to suggest that Red-breasted Nuthatches can understand “chickadee!” Very cool stuff, so I thought it was worth digressing from raptor stuff to share!