This just in…

Dotting most of the eastern states including Canada and Mexico are gatherings of birdwatchers that sit (or stand, or lean) for hours a day looking up towards the deep blue skies overhead. They’ll carefully scan the horizon in search of tiny, flying black dots that move across the sky in a northerly direction…hawks are in migration.

The excitement builds just about this time every year as we all wait in anticipation for the coming of the hawks to our Adirondack woods, and fields. We birders are getting goosebumps from the latest reports of hawkwatchers in Texas and Mexico. They have just reported their first sighting of a migrating broad-winged hawk…break out the champagne!

What’s the big deal?? Well first we need to look at the travels of hawks to see just how remarkable the journey of the broad-winged hawk really is.

Most hawks we encounter during the summer months in the Adirondacks are not that remarkable in their migration length. Most red-tailed hawks go to the southeast US and some wintering hawks come down from southern Ontario or Quebec.

The broad-wings start their immense northward  journey down in the tropical regions of Central America and northern South America where they spent the winter… OK, maybe the peregrine falcon has the longest flight at 7,000 miles from S. America to the Canadian Tundra, but falcons don’t migrate in the awe-inspiring numbers like the broad wings are often seen doing.

So as our colleagues count the hawks coming up into Mexico they like to send out word that the “broadies” are en route. And as we North Country birders get wind of this we rejoice in knowing that spring is not too far away!

There are several hawk watching sites in NY but the one that gets the most attention for having big numbers of broadies fly by is Derby Hill Hawk Watch site…located in, of all places, Mexico, NY! Here you can find “counters” carefully counting each hawk as it flies by.  These hawk counts can give scientists a better idea of hawk populations, and migratory movements, as well as providing valuable education to the public.

Broad-winged hawks are fairly prolific nesters in the Adirondacks. Sometime in mid to late May keep an eye out for nests being built in sugar maples, black cherry, yellow birch or sometimes white pines. Then from a distance, admire their daily workings and life history.

You’ll soon hear the corks popping as we get word of the first spring arrival broad-winged hawk in New York!

Illustration: Broad-winged hawk-wikipedia