Bald Eagle photograph by Matt White
“I am getting cold,” my wife Kristin said, waking me up. A quick look and squint at the red numbers on the clock revealed that it was just after 4 AM. Rousting out of bed to shut the open window, I realized that I was also cold. I had left the window open the night before because the balmy weather was just a bit uncomfortable. And to be honest, for several days the weather forecasters had predicted that sometime Friday night the first really cool fall weather would arrive on the heels of a front dropping temperatures into the forties, and I wanted to feel it arrive.

A steady breeze was blowing in through the window as I reached to shut it out. It was one of those moist north breezes born somewhere on the prairies of southern Canada. “Tomorrow will a great day for watching hawks,” I thought, as I crawled back into bed to sleep until morning.

After breakfast I grabbed my binoculars and my camera and headed to the lawn chair in the backyard to scan the skies for migrants flying south. Conditions were perfect. A steady north wind with high clouds would make spotting the flying specks easier.

In no time at all a Sharp-shinned Hawk approached, wheeling and turning high overhead as it headed south. Soon I spotted two Broad-winged Hawks, one Cooper’s Hawk, and one Swainson’s Hawk all seemingly together. Over the years I have found that watching one bird will some cause others to materialize. However, just seeing them, not to mention counting them all, takes some effort. At other times the sky will be completely empty for 10 or 15 minutes at a time or longer.

Suddenly, after a slight lull in the traffic, a large dark hawk appeared motoring with determination and what can only be describe as gravitas. Huge by comparison to all the other birds, and solid black except for a white head and tail, it was instantly recognizable as an adult Bald Eagle—the first I had spotted in 15 seasons of watching hawks from my backyard. So excited I could hardly hold the camera steady, I managed to get one picture of the bird before it was gone…

By mid morning it was clear that lots of birds were migrating—not just hawks. High in the air were hundreds of swallows and about 20 or 30 Yellow-shafted Flickers were moving past every ten minutes or so. I even spotted the rarer Red-shafted Flicker—a visitor from out west. A group of Eastern Meadowlarks, several Scissor-tailed Flycatchers, two flocks of American White Pelicans, several dozen Blue Jays flew over—all migrating south. It was turning out to be a red-letter day.

Taking a short break to eat lunch, I had just returned to my vigil when the Peregrine Falcon appeared. A large, strong falcon, it was here one second and gone the next. Like Bald Eagles, these majestic raptors were once almost wiped out in North America, because of the use of DDT, a pesticide that thinned their eggshells. Likewise, in the past two decades numbers of both birds have rebounded quite well, and they are now regular in good numbers at hawk watches throughout the country. A randomly placed observer in the middle of the continent is still lucky to see them however, so I considered myself doubly lucky about an hour later when I spotted another one drawing a bead on points south and trying to get there in record time.

As the day drew to a close I began counting my totals, which included eleven raptor species, including 34 Broad-winged Hawks, two Peregrine Falcons. Then like a grand finale at a fire works show, the day ended with a final push of birds. It was after 5 PM when I detected 17 Broad-winged Hawks, half my total so far in one group, and… whoa, another Bald Eagle! Finally the last species to be tallied, a lone Osprey darted past. Although I had seen nothing so rare that it would turn the heads of hard core birdwatchers, I had spent a day watching a real drama take place.