The top of Pack Monadnock was unusually quiet during the fall migration period from Sept. 1 to Nov. 20 due to COVID-19, but the skies above tell a different story.
During this year’s annual Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory, a collaboration between the Harris Center for Conservation Education and NH Audubon, a total of 12,032 migrating hawks were counted above the flight corridor that has collected important data over the last 16 years that helps paint a picture of the migration patterns from the region.
The overall number is slightly above the average obtained from the previous 15 years of the project, but well short of the all-time high of 19,845 observed in 2015.
“It’s still one of the better years in overall numbers,” said Hawk Watch Coordinator Phil Brown. “It’s directly related to how many broad-winged Hawks we have. That species really drives the numbers.”
Brown said they had three days in which more than 1,000 broad-winged hawks were counted making the trip south. They counted 8,815 total broad-winged hawks, the majority of which passed overhead over the course of two weeks, a species that accounts for 70 to 75 percent of the yearly total. In just one day, Sept. 18, they counted 3,000 broad-winged hawks, as the height of their migration season always happens between Sept. 15-20.
“We’ve seen up to 5,000 on a particularly spectacular day,” he said. “It happens like clockwork and that day has been our peak five or six different years. That tells you something about the consistency from year to year.”
Brown said up to 15 raptor species migrate each fall. For the third year in a row they saw a record number of bald eagles, 185, five more than last year. There were also record highs for the American kestrels (257) and red-shouldered hawks (223). On the other side of the coin, they saw fewer ospreys than bald eagles this year.
“That’s completely reversed. We would see three times that number a decade ago,” Brown said.
They also counted five golden eagles, which Brown said is a very rare species in the east.
Due to the coronavirus pandemic, Brown was unsure if they would be assigned a permit to conduct the research this year. With Miller State Park requiring reservations to keep the number of visitors down, Brown said there were many conversations with the NH Division of State Parks and NH Department of Natural & Cultural Resources. The go-ahead wasn’t given until a few days before the anticipated start.
Brown said “it’s not the end of the world” to miss a year in the count and the project would have survived, but having the opportunity to keep the continuity would eliminate any future questions about what truly transpired in 2020.
“It’s hard to make an assumption from one year of data,” Brown said, but added that by collecting the data they can continue to make connections locally to what’s happening in migration.
Brown said they tracked 4,500 visitors this year, which was fairly close to average. The differences came in the fact that the 10 to 20 school groups that visit each fall, sometimes accounting for up to 1,000 students, were not coming and the annual hawk release day was canceled. And those who did visit, who included many home school students, were distanced from each other by roped-off areas that safely fit four people.
“We felt it went very smoothly,” Brown said.
Brown brought his family every Tuesday, calling it a natural classroom for his children. He said every day on the mountain is different, citing blazing hot days throughout the season, along with an October snowstorm.
“There’s always something unexpected to see,” he said.
To engage others who did not make the trip to the top of Pack, they held virtual education sessions, Live From the Hawk Watch.
“We ended up reaching hundreds of people that way,” Brown said.
To learn more, visit https://harriscenter.org/conservation-research/pack-monadnock-raptor-observatory.