A year ago, Eric Masterson stood in front of a crowd at the Amos Fortune Forum in Jaffrey and announced his intent: He was going to bike 5,000 miles to Colombia to follow the migration of the broad-winged hawk.
“I figured if I said it in front of all those people, I would have to actually do it. I had to shame myself into doing this, or I never would have done it,” joked Masterson in an interview last week. “I’ve been thinking about doing this for four years.”
And with the expectant eyes of the region on his back, Masterson stepped out of the front door of his Hancock home on Tuesday, bags packed on his bicycle and a wearable camera attached to his helmet. He waved to a small crowd who wished him farewell and set out on his journey – a six-month trek following the broad-winged hawk’s narrowly defined migration path down the Appalachians to the Gulf Coast and south into Mexico.
Masterson, a land protection coordinator at the Harris Center, is working with Hawk Mountian Sanctuary, and will be following a route recorded by several individual hawks that Hawk Mountain has fitted with satellite transmitters.
“I think there is a binary school of thought about migratory birds,” said Masterson. “We think about them here, or down south. We don’t really think about the path they take to get there. Where there’s a path, there’s a story. The story of a migrating bird hasn’t been told in the way I’m doing it.”
Masterson said he is approaching his trip from the perspective of a conservationist.
“I see it not as going from New Hampshire to Texas to Costa Rica,” said Masterson, “but as traveling from the range of the bobcat to the range of the jaguar and howler monkey.”
Masterson said he’s always been fascinated by migration, and how little humans actually know about it. It’s only been in the last few decades that technology has allowed for humans to accurately track the flight path of certain birds, as transmitters became small and light enough to attach to a bird.
Masterson will be focusing his path on broad-winged hawks, he said, because they are one of the most visible species when it comes to hawk watching during the migration period. Broad-winged hawks have a very narrow time frame in which they begin their migration, and all follow the same route down the Appalacian mountians, resulting in thousands of hawks per day being sighted at hawkwatch sites all down the route.
“We have 14 species of hawk in New Hampshire, but the broad-winged hawk is the most iconic,” said Masterson.
It would be far less time consuming – not to mention less expensive – to take the trip by motorcycle or car, said Masterson, but he deliberately chose to use a bicycle on the trip, because it’s the closest he’s able to come to making the arduous trip under his own power – an experience he wants to share with the hawks.
“For me, one of the most amazing aspects of migration is that they’re doing it unaided,” said Masterson. “I would feel like I were cheating if I got onto a motorbike or into a car.”
But, admitted Masterson, once he’s completed his journey, he will be making use of the modern convenience of an airplane to return home.
“Oh, I’m never getting on a bike again,” he predicted firmly. “I’m sure of that.”
“Something of value will come of this experience,” he said. “But all I’m hoping for at this point is a compelling narrative that will turn the dial for people’s interest in hawks.”
Masterson will keep a daily blog at ericmasterson.com, where supporters can also donate to the project. To follow the progress of Hawk Mountain’s GPS-tagged hawks, go to hawkmountain.org/birdtracker.