Time Flies with the Raptors
By Michael Givant

Fall, 2008

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The last and best hawk watch that I attended this season was on an October day with the temperature in the forties and the wind gusting between 12 to 15 mph.  It was too cold to be out on an open hawk-watching platform between a bay and the ocean but too good not to be. Why? Mother nature had brought the best kind of wind, one from the Northwest. And it was blowing migrating raptors in to Fire Island.

11:16 AM Two lithe deer slowly cross the road as I get to the hawk-watch
platform. Steve a superb birder has been there alone and tallied 16 raptors. A
merlin in silhouette beats its wings rapidly, tucks them in, and does a long
fast dive across the dunes, then is gone. Zoom baby zoom! 
 

"Another Sharp-shinned Hawk,....  I lose it, but hawk-eyed Steve doesn't."

Steve, watching for hawks

  
I used to think that a “sharpie” was a brand name pen until the small, speedy
sharp-shinned hawks started coming in. Two unidentified accipiters fly over the dunes until they are flying up and down framed against a backdrop of the ocean.  Sharpies. Both are going at each other. Are they playing? Fighting? One has a small bird in its talon and isn’t giving it up. The other won’t take no for an answer. Their wings aren’t sharply pointed or bent but have a soft slightly rounded shape, as do their bodies. Oddly they remind me of paper airplanes.

12:43 PM Another sharp-shinned hawk, a half-mile away by the lighthouse, is
coming in. I lose it but hawk-eyed Steve doesn’t. When I pick up the bird
sometimes called the “bullet-hawk,” it is much closer having covered ground like Seattle Slew. The raptor is heading toward the plastic owl atop a pole about thirty-five feet from the platform. The sharpie has a white breast and belly with some pale streaking. Nothing I’ve seen has come this close to the platform.  The raptor buzzes the owl, the second one to do that today, and flies off in no hurry. Its bent back wings show a deep and slightly curved area between the wing sections. I’m smitten. That owl has earned its pay today.

1:00 PM Two sharpies materialize seemingly out of nowhere by the road in front of some vegetation and buzz each other.  Incredulously I ask Steve if they could be the two that flew in there about twenty minutes ago? Earlier when we saw one sharpie come in over the dunes I put down a cup of hot tea that I’d been drinking. Coming relatively close to us the bird changed direction to fly over some vegetation when another seemingly materialized out of nowhere!   The pair disappeared among some vegetation by the bay. Maybe they would soon appear above its blue water. Nothing. Nada. Now only the birds know if they are the same pair. However as they fly off they’re not talking. Returning to my tea I find it has turned ice cold without the benefit of cubes.

Now I understand why someone once referred to the sharpie as “feathered lightning.” 

Almost immediately another sharpie flies quickly between small trees and scrub below the dunes on the beach side. It almost appears to be tunneling among the dark green vegetation. Now I understand why someone once referred to the sharpie as “feathered lightning.”  It passes some bare sand and disappears. Soon two sharpies materialize again on the ocean side.  They split off from each other and one comes abreast of us flying high. I hold binoculars on the raptor watching the sun come through its splayed primaries as it flies past a glittering section of ocean on its way to only-it-knows where.
 
Yet another sharpie is traveling along the bay. This guy is about to have some trouble. Six crows, locals, have betaking umbrage at the intruder goes after it. “Not too smart, crow” says Walter a veteran hawk-watcher and expert birder who has now joined us. The sharpie isn’t about to bother with the larger bird as it heads toward the bridge with the yellow streaking on its belly glowing in the afternoon sun.

Sharp-shinned Hawk
 

This sharpie Steve says was an adult and he shows me a drawing in a field guide that illustrates the adult’s dark back. This one’s a rarity here as overwhelmingly the sharpies that pass through are immature.

2:07 PM “Both are Coops” Steve calls out. There’s an adult Cooper’s hawk and an immature one flying  by the  bay. One has a long black-banded tail with a lot of white near the base and a rich brown body, which is held straight. The other has a bluish back and reddish breast. I lock a picture of the first bird in my mind’s eye not just because it is stately but also because I want to be able
to start identifying these raptors. Steve shows me comparative drawings of the Cooper’s and the sharpie in his field guide explaining that the Cooper’s head is proportionally larger than that of the sharpie. Great in-the-field information.

2:24 PM Earlier we saw a harrier flying along by the bay toward the bridge. The brown bodied, white-rumped, marsh hawk banked slightly showing a butterscotch color, glowing in the midday sun. Magic in motion. Now there’s another one going the wrong way over the dunes. Maybe it’s feeding; maybe it didn’t like the prospect of flying to New Jersey.
 
3:06 PM A small falcon with a lot of bright yellow on the breast and with what
looks to be a huge eye for it’s size flies by fast. It’s the kestrel, the
smallest of our falcons, and doesn’t have a huge eye but a vertical black
“mustache” below the eye. That’s something I won’t forget.

An adult merlin perched atop a telephone pole eating a small bird looks around while feeding. The falcon does this for a long time and finally moves toward the edge of the pole, its tail partially hanging over. Fueled up and ready to go.  Soon it’s gone. The moment is peaceful and tranquil. The day, like the birds, seems to have flown by. With the tally at 38 Steve and Walter will stay for another hour but I’m chilled and at 3:30 PM it’s time to go.
 

I like the spectacle and mystery of the hawks.


What’s the attraction in standing on an open windy platform, bundled up like an Eskimo, getting fleeting looks at migrating hawks, sometimes with barely time to blink? I like the spectacle and mystery of the hawks. The spartan setting and beach landscape create mood. Some of the veteran hawk watchers are walking encyclopedias of bird knowledge, which I deeply admire, and are invaluable for a  novice in learning to recognize the raptors. Their camaraderie is genuine and the jokes are good.   You can't ask for more on an Autumn day.

The writer is a retired sociology professor having taught at Adelphi University for well over thirty years. He is an avid birder and spends his winter in Longboat Key Florida enjoying it's extensive bird life.

Photos by Trudy Battaly