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| Looking N from Lookout, most birds were from NE |
Bill took a recent trip up to Hawk Mountain, a sanctuary and Hawk Lookout in Kempton, Pa. It is famous for putting watching hawks on the map. It is where lots of valuable contributors to the education of Hawk Watching honed their skills. Many of us would have loved to visit there down through the years, both for the experience and for the comparison to our own watch.
It has been a dream of Bill's for some time, and this year it became possible. He sent us some wonderful pics and has great stories of his experience there. In many ways their watch is like ours, but in many ways it was very different. For instance, they have great numbers of visitors, some serious hawk watchers, but many were just visiting. They have groups of students and visitors from all over the world. We have hawk watchers from several states, and numbers of photographers who visit us. Neither site is very glamorous, although the views are incredible at times from either site. Our hill is a tough climb some days, but theirs - well let's allow his pictures tell the story:
(Bill's pics and captions)
Bill made friends with those sitting on the hill behind him,
which is typical for most places we go birding, where ever we go.
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| Just to prove I was there. LOL |
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| Serious hawk watching face. |
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| Owl - |
2 different Merlin made close passes at the owl, with the last bird of the day
at 6:15 making 3 passes and giving us great looks! What a way to end the day!
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| Hawk Mountain North Lookout |
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| View to east from lookout - Looking towards pinnacle and owls head. |
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Blow this up and look for the little hill on the horizon in
the valley. That is Donat - their version of Fred.
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| How to spot ultra specks - 30 power scope contributed probably 350-400 BW that were not visible to me. |
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This rocky trail goes down another 100 feet from the
restrooms. ..and you still have over a half mile hike back to the car. The
trail doesn't get much better the last half mile either. I was up on north
lookout 9:00-6:30 today. That's a long time to sit on uncomfortable rocks!
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It is straight uphill from here and a good hike from there
to north lookout. You don't really want to go to the bathroom much!
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Thanks, so much Bill, for sharing your visit! So great to see how they watch Hawks at other watches. Sorry about the rock seats. We have it easy in our chairs in comparison, and I promise never to complain again about the hills we have to climb at our watch. It would also be nice to have an individual who could dedicate time to watching through the scope. I believe we could increase our odds at seeing those blinkers. Maybe I should try that today. If no wind to blow the scope over....
So this was how Hawk Mountain Watchers -
KEEP LOOKING UP!!!
Jimmy and Cynthia Wilkerson
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