Skywatching for hawks

I know it’s a Raven, but it’s the best bird pic I got today during a couple hours spent at the Montclair Hawkwatch. The hawkwatch site is NJ Audubon’s smallest sanctuary and the second oldest continuous- running hawkwatch in the country, second only to Hawk Mountain in Pa.

Finding hawks at a ridge site, as opposed to a coastal watch like Sandy Hook or Cape May, is really difficult and requires a lot of patience and much better eyesight than I have. We were looking at speck birds for most of the day! I did get to see a few kettles of Broadwings way up in the clouds (yesterday they counted 4437 Broadwings), some Osprey and Sharpies, a couple Kestrals and had a nice look at a Peregrine.

We had to be glad for all those clouds in the sky cause they gave us landmarks to help locate the birds soaring high above. A fun day, but I prefer coastal hawkwatching that doesn’t require quite as much imagination!

I met this guy there who has some fantastic hawk pics on his Flickr site.

Visit here for more Friday Skywatch posts.

16 thoughts on “Skywatching for hawks”

  1. This is the second skywatch today where there were Hawks pictured. Is this a special time of year for that? Yesterday I was at the beach where there is a special deck for Hawk viewing and though I have passed this many times before (and it was always empty), yesterday there were about 10 people with cameras and binoculars looking up to the sky and we saw a Hawk fly right above us.

  2. Nothing like differing opinions, I personally like that big white cloud collaged onto the deep blue sky best with or without sparrow?

  3. There’s just no getting you shoreline people away from the sea, is there? Glad you had a sort of nice time anyway.

    I’m going to a hawkwatch today. If I don’t get some good shots, I will put the camera down and switch to binocs and just enjoy the show.

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