[va-richmond-general] another neat article on migration sightings

From: "Kathy Kreutzer" <k-kreutzer@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <va-richmond-general@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 4 Oct 2003 19:34:28 -0400
from Kathy Kreutzer, Chesterfield, VA
October 3, 2003
RITUALS
Who Needs Baseball? Birders Have Their Own Fall Classic
By JOE ROMAN

OLLOWING the Connecticut coastline, a short-winged predator flapped over the
New Haven airport one morning last week and on to an open field. Down below,
eight hawkers in full plumage ? sunglasses, baseball caps and jeans ?
glanced up and trained their expensive eyes ? Swarovskis, Leicas and Bausch
& Lombs ? on the bird. "A sharpie straight overhead," one called out.

The sharp-shinned hawk flew on, toward Interstate 95 and the white
oil-storage tanks that hug New Haven Harbor, and continued its journey
south.

Each fall, millions of hawks, falcons and ospreys leave their northern
breeding grounds for warmer weather. Many spend the winter in the South,
while others, like broad-winged hawks, migrate to Central and South America.
From ridges and coastlines across the country, hundreds of volunteers scan
the sky to count them. In Connecticut, local ornithologists watch over
Lighthouse Point from late August to the end of November.

Four miles south of downtown New Haven, Lighthouse Point is situated at the
end of a wide peninsula, which funnels migrants from Northern New England
and Canada past this coastal watch site. Despite the urban setting, the park
has some of the highest hawk counts in the Northeast.

It was an excellent day for ospreys. These fishing hawks, with their white
bellies and black wrist patches at the front of their underwings, are
relatively easy to identify. Even at a distance, the long crooked wings,
which form an avian M, are discernable. As one osprey glided overhead, an
agile sharpie dive-bombed the larger bird, then fluttered on. Unfazed, the
osprey glided over Five Mile Point Light, the octagonal sandstone lighthouse
that gives the park its name, if no longer its purpose (the beacon is now
dark; the foghorn silenced years ago).

"I got a bird, a scope and a half above the cottonwood," a hawker called
out. In my beat-up binoculars, I couldn't find a thing. Even when I located
the speck, it resembled a tiny staple punched through the cloud more than
any silhouette in a Peterson field guide. I learned to hold out for the
naked-eye birds, those large enough to spot simply by looking up at the sky.
And soon the sharp-shinned hawk's "flap, flap, flap, glide" and squared-off
tail, and the northern harrier's white rump and constant readjustments in
course became familiar traits.

In all, 201,630 migrating raptors were recorded in the Northeast last year:
13,854, mostly sharp-shinned hawks, passed over Lighthouse Point. The Hawk
Migration Association of North America maintains tallies from more than a
hundred migration sites on its Web site www.hawkcount.org. Once you are
familiar with the two-letter abbreviations used by birders ? a bald eagle,
for example, is "BE" and a sharp-shinned hawk "SS" ? you can follow the
migration from the Niagara Escarpment in southern Ontario to Veracruz in
Mexico.

FOR a self-chosen few, this event has all the excitement of postseason
baseball. From the waning days of summer through November, the birds will
pass in a more-or-less predictable procession. Ron Bell, the count
coordinator of Lighthouse Point, said that in a typical year ospreys and
kestrels start migrating first, followed by the sharpies, Cooper's hawks and
harriers, which can be seen in September and October. Red-tailed hawks and
turkey vultures are at the bottom of the lineup, migrating in October and
November.

By noon, the count was over 200 at Lighthouse Point, mostly kestrels. But as
in baseball, there are stats, and then there are moments of true beauty. I
watched a hawk shift in a thermal, the afternoon sun lighting its
russet-colored breast. The black border along the trailing edge of the wings
was as striking as the white band on the tail. As it glided to another
thermal, I got it ? a broad-winged hawk.

And then a dark speck approached, with the no-nonsense determination of the
private jets lifting off from the nearby airport. The stout neck and
horizontal wings, I was told, were characteristic of the bald eagle. Though
immature, it was the largest raptor of the day.

There are two major Eastern flyways, one on the coast and the other down the
ridges of the Appalachians. Last week, I climbed up Blueberry Hill in
Granville, Mass. Surrounded by deciduous forest, a 54-acre clearing is
maintained for an annual blueberry harvest, providing a 360-degree view of
the Berkshires. At 1,476 feet above sea level, the hawkers cling to two
large rafts of concrete, installed by the site's coordinator, Seth Kellogg,
who runs a septic business when he's not watching hawks. (His business card
lists "avianotary" among his vocations.)

On this inland flyway, migrants use thermals and the updrafts from surface
winds over mountain ridges to travel distances that can exceed 100 miles a
day. I was fortunate to see a kettle that afternoon, a group of 34
broad-winged hawks rising in an updraft and gliding south. To save energy
and gain speed, long-distance migrants glide from thermal to thermal, like
monkeys swinging from trees. After the kettle, a kestrel, naked eye, swooped
in. It hovered, then captured a dragonfly. Barely shifting its flight path,
the small falcon ate its morsel on the wing.

According to Mr. Kellogg, the long-term data from these counts, which are
sent to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and recorded by the hawk migration
association, show that kestrel, sharpie and broad-winged populations are all
declining in the East. Why? "Deforestation is affecting broad-winged hawks
in Central and South America," Mr. Kellogg said. The destruction of habitat
in Canada, the use of DDT in Latin America and the decline in prey species
like songbirds could also be reducing these predators. One exception to this
general decline is the bald eagle, which according to the hawk count has
continued its "meteoric rise" in recent years. All these raptors are
fortunate to have such sharp-eyed, dedicated monitors watching their
populations across the decades.

As the sun set, the winds and thermals dropped down. We watched two ospreys
muscle across the horizon, looking for a place to spend the night, and
decided to call it a day. The official counter, John Weeks, tallied up 119
broad-winged hawks, 187 migrants in all.

On the drive home, after two days in the field, my eyes kept falling on the
wayward flapping of the pigeons, the starlings dropping like confetti from
the pines. Then on a rise in the road, a bird was perched on a power line
overhead. Given the small size and the mascaraed streak beneath the eye, I
was sure it was a kestrel. As it hovered into the updraft, I identified my
first migrant.

Travel Information

Depending on the weather, hawkers watch the skies from late August to the
end of November.

To reach Lighthouse Point Park in New Haven, take Interstate 95 to Exit 50
(Woodward Avenue), turn right at the second light on Townsend Avenue, and
then right on Lighthouse Road. Follow signs to the park.

Blueberry Hill is in the Phelon Memorial Forest in southwestern
Massachusetts. From Granville, Mass., take Route 57 west for four miles and
turn right on North Lane. Park in the small lot 1.4 miles on the right, and
follow the path on the right to the top of the hill.

Quaker Ridge at the Audubon Center in Greenwich, Conn., also attracts hawks
and watchers. From Interstate 684, take Exit 3 (Route 22 in Armonk, N.Y. Go
north on Route 22 to Route 433 (Riversville Road). Turn right on Route 433
and continue 2.5 miles to the Audubon Center.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search |
Corrections | Help | Back to Top


You are subscribed to VA-Richmond-General. To unsubscribe, send email to
va-richmond-general-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject 
field. To adjust other settings (vacation, digest, etc.) please visit, 
//www.freelists.org/list/va-richmond-general.
[va-richmond-general] another neat article on migration sightings

Other related posts:
