Date: Fri 20-Sep-1996

Publication: Bee

Author: DOTTIE

Quick Words:

hawk-watch-Brody

Full Text:

Hawk Watch 1996: Polly Brody And Friends Keep An Eagle Eye

B Y D OROTHY E VANS

Forget running errands or walking the dog.

Instead, go outside and spend 10 minutes sitting in a lawn chair with a pair

of binoculars trained at the sky. If it's not too cold and if the wind is just

right, you might be lucky enough to witness the yearly migration of

broad-winged hawks.

They're flying right now over Connecticut and over Newtown, over your house or

over your school, and it's a spectacle worth seeing at least once in your

life, according to Newtown naturalist and poet, Polly Brody.

"Look way up. You may spot the tiny specks like pepper in a cloud of some

6,000 at a time - floating upward on thermals of air. Or watch them stream

across the sky, like a river or like the milky way," said Ms Brody, who hasn't

missed the mid-September hawk migration for the past 20 years.

"But there has to be a wind. Hawks don't migrate in stagnant air," she

cautioned.

Every year at this time, Ms Brody said, the crow-sized raptors take off by the

thousands from breeding grounds in Canada and the Northeast. They fly at

altitudes of 2,500 to 3,000 feet and travel more than 3,000 miles to spend the

winter months in Central and South America.

"They'll be pouring through in the middle of the day when the thermals heat

up," she said, explaining that hawks take advantage of the rising hot air

bouncing off the ridges to help them soar and plane.

But it's not just the watching that motivates Ms Brody and her fellow hawk

enthusiasts to keep daily watch from a high hill in northern Newtown. It's the

counting.

For the past few days, she and her friends have kept vigil from a sitting

position in lawn chairs spread across a grassy field, scanning the skies.

"On a good day, we're counting by 10s," she said, describing the process of

identifying the different species that sometimes fly together along the

migration route.

There might be sharp-shinned hawks, osprey, red-tail hawks, kestrels, turkey

vultures or an occasional bald eagle. But it's the broad-winged hawks, which

she calls "broadies," that are most easily identifiable by their two white

tail bands. They're the ones that migrate in such overwhelming numbers, she

said.

Sometimes, the hawk-counters are swamped by their sheer numbers.

"On a great day, we divide the sky and just lie on the ground and count as

fast as we can. That's when it really gets exciting," Ms Brody said, recalling

the 1986 "banner year" migration when she and Nature Conservancy bird expert

Art Titus of New Milford (and several helpers) counted a total of 13,000

"broadies" over a two-day period.

Last Saturday, Ms Brody and Mr Titus were still talking about that long-ago

day, wondering whether 1996 would be a good year or a bad year.

As part of the regular routine the group follows at the onset of each

hawk-watch hour: Ms Brody made note of certain vital statistics on her clip

board.

Date, 9/14/96; Time, 1 pm Eastern standard (that's hawk time, Ms Brody

explained); Temperature, 20 degrees C.; Wind, NNW and freshening; Cloud cover,

75 percent but lessening; Visibility, clear; Observers, five.

"We've got more observers than hawks," quipped hawk-watch veteran Alice Gale

of Danbury.

Leaning back in the chair next to Ms Gale was Bob Erling of Bristol. He said

he'd participated in the Newtown watch with Ms Brody "a number of times."

As the four regulars and one first-timer settled down with their binoculars

raised, not much seemed to be happening in the skies overhead.

But the early autumn landscape offered a peaceful scene and nobody seemed to

mind the waiting. Tall sprays of goldenrod nodded in a gentle breeze that

ruffled the silvery leaves of Russian olive trees. A monarch butterfly dipped

past some milk weed. Insects buzzed. Shadows of clouds swept across the

Housatonic River Valley, darkening the hills of Brookfield and Bridgewater to

the north. Occasional sunlight filtered through, highlighting a distant hill

side with bright green.

Then came the call to action, galvanizing veteran and neophyte hawk-watchers

alike.

"Kettle forming over Round Tree! In that pinkish cloud with the hole in the

middle," Ms Brody announced.

"Round Tree" is only one of many horizon landmarks, such as Tall Tree,

Village, Dead Tree and Power Line, that are regularly used by the group to

help locate the birds as they are spotted overhead.

"A kettle" is an assemblage of hawks soaring upward in a column, riding the

thermals to conserve energy.

"Now they're planing! Going south!" said Ms Brody.

The watchers fixed their binoculars on the lead bird and began their silent

counting.

After the last bird disappeared behind them to the south, they agreed there

had been 51 "broadies" and one osprey going along for the ride. Ms Brody

recorded the sighting and the group settled down once more, scanning the

skies, ready for whatever came next.

"Those were probably New Preston hawks," said Ms Brody, referring to the

possibility that the birds might have been aloft for an hour or so and would

have reached southern Connecticut by now.

On a good day, when the wind is out of the northwest, hawks can travel

approximately 250 miles, she said, and the migration process over Connecticut

might last for more than a week, depending upon the weather.

"They don't like a southwest wind. But if it gets late enough in the month

with the days getting shorter, they'll go anyway," she said.

"They have a biological clock somewhere inside, no one's been able to figure

out where," she added, interrupting herself as she spied another hawk floating

above, the vanguard of more to come.

"Another kettle forming! No, two! It's impossible. You can't count them when

they're swirling like this. It must be 270 to 300 birds. There they go!" Ms

Brody said and proceeded to count anyway.

By the end of the afternoon, the Newtown group had recorded a total of 1,464

birds migrating that day: 1,430 "broadies", 10 osprey and 2 bald eagles -

along with assorted "little stuff" like "sharpies" (sharp-shinned hawks) and

"TVs" (turkey vultures).

"It was a good day," Ms Brody concluded.

Asked whether she'd come back the next day, she answered, of course.

"I have to," she said.

She planned to continue until the migration was completely over - probably

until September 20, at least.

At the end, she'd be tabulating the totals and comparing them with numbers

obtained by other hawk counters in the region, like Newtown's Neal Currie who

watches from a Hillside in Roxbury.

When the 1996 numbers are all in, the various groups throughout the northeast

will be sending their results to the US Fish and Wildlife Service and the data

will be noted by the Hawk Migration Association of North America.

There are many local groups who keep a close eye on the yearly numbers of

migrating birds, Ms Brody said, hoping to see them grow rather than diminish.

But migration is a miracle in itself, she added, and if you don't feel like

counting the hawks, you don't have to. Just sit back and enjoy their flight.