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Hawk watchers l. to r., Henry (official counter), Tom, Katrina, Don, Lillian, Rod, David, Lily, Janet. In front, Ken, Francie
On Sunday, 9/18/11 we, and many others, were at Pack Monadnock Raptor Migration Observatory, run by NH Audubon, to witness their historic, record-setting, hawk migration flight. We had 5,290 raptors migrate over our heads, almost all of them Broad-winged Hawks. This made the season's total of migrating hawks, so far, to over 10,000 raptors, thus hence the sign and happy faces. It was awesome!
Broad-winged Hawks migrate in groups, riding thermals of warm air, then gliding to the next thermal, as a way of conserving energy on their long journey to their wintering areas in Central and South America.
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A rising group of Broadwings is called a "kettle". One of the kettles we saw contained over 1,000 hawks.
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We have been watching migrating hawks each fall for over 30 years. It's a wonderful addiction, which, as someone on the mountain said, "there is no cure".
3 comments:
Raptor watching is always so exciting. Must have been a wonderful day!
What date is best at Pack Monadnock for total species? Total individuals?
Best time at Pack is Sept. 10-20th to see the big Broad-winged Hawk migration numbers. After that, there are smaller numbers of hawks migrating but still plenty of falcons, accipiters, eagles and more until mid-Nov.
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