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Here are some tips from local experts on raptor watching during fall migration season, including where to go in Massachusetts and what you might see.
This is an excerpt from WBUR's Saturday morning newsletter, The Weekender. If you like what you read and want it in your inbox,Birds of prey like hawks and eagles spent the season in Massachusetts breeding and nesting.
But now, as the weather cools, it’s time for them to take their fledglings and head south. For most raptors, fall is the peak of their migration. Volunteers with the Eastern Massachusetts Hawk Watch — which was founded in 1976 — have spent the last month recording migrating hawks, eagles, vultures and other birds of prey from high points across the state.
The data helps conservationists and local birders better understand how raptor populations are doing, said John Herbert, director of bird conservation at Mass Audubon.
“ We have over a dozen species that regularly pass through,” said Brian Rusnica, the president of EMHW. For birders who might want to catch some of the action on the fly, now’s a great time. Here are some tips from experts on hawk-watching during migration season, including where to go and what you might see. A red-tailed hawk sits on a branch of a tree at the New England Wildlife Center in Weymouth.
Broad-winged hawk migration is one of the biggest raptor movements during the fall in Massachusetts. As they head to South America for the winter, the birds fly not in a V but in an energy-saving formation called a kettle.
“They resemble a boiling kettle of water with bubbles rising to the top," Rusnica said. Kettles can include hundreds of birds, which means"we can see sometimes thousands of broad-wingeds in a single day," he added.its largest sighting of broad-winged hawks for this year — 6,321 individual birds — at Mount Wachusett on Sept. 21. Since then, the hawks’ numbers have tapered off, Rusnica said.
“So we're observing other birds like bald eagles, peregrine falcons and a whole host of others that are just as exciting,” he said. “But they're going in much smaller numbers. ” Other raptors — including the red-tailed hawk, Swainson’s hawk, the red-shouldered hawk, the sharp-shinned hawk, Cooper’s hawk, American kestrels and turkey vultures — will also continue to migrate into October and early November, according to Rusnica and Herbert.
Some species’ migration seasons even stretch into late November and early December. The EMHW has two hawk-watching sites: one on Mount Wachusett in Princeton and another on Mount Watatic in Ashburnham EMHW volunteers will be up on Mount Wachusett watching for hawks “every dry day until Halloween,” according to Rusnica.
“So we absolutely encourage people who are interested in learning about raptor migration to go there. Our counters and volunteer observers will be there and are always happy to engage folks,” he said. Herbert said other good hawk-watching spots include Mount Tom State Reservation in Holyoke and Pinnacle Rock just outside of Boston in the Middlesex Fells Reservation. Rusnica also suggested popular birding spots like Mount Auburn Cemetery or Great Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in Concord.
“You can hawk watch from your yard,” he said. “Any place where you've got an open view of the sky … if you can see the northern horizon, you've got a chance to see raptors migrating. ”bundling up before heading out to spot raptors. A compass can be helpful, too, for determining where the wind is coming from and what direction birds are moving in.
Another tip: bring binoculars.
“You can hawk watch with just your eyes, but binoculars will allow you to see more birds and see distant ones," Rusnica said. An adult female peregrine falcon in flight over the Student Village Towers at Boston University. If you’d like to get better at spotting raptors, Rusnica also recommends two books that he calls “the hawk-watchers’ canon” — “Hawks from a Distance” and “Hawks from Every Angle,” both by author Jerry Liguori.
Mass Audubon is also hosting fall migration bird walks this Sunday in“The hawk watching doesn't have to just happen at an official site. It can happen on your lunch break, on your way to work, wherever you want,” Rusnica said.
“ I would always recommend people to just kinda go for it. And if you have a good day, it can really kind of kickstart an obsession. ” P.S. — Did you know biologists at UMass Amherst have discovered what may be the three loudest birds in the world?
Take a peek at the contenders for the planet’s top squawkers
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