Safe Travels: These 2 places are the best in Upstate NY to see migrating raptors each spring

Editor’s Note: This is part of an ongoing series that features things to do in Upstate New York while we still experience the Covid-19 pandemic. Before venturing out, please take proper precautions and check for any changed business hours, park hours or availability. Safe travels!

There’s something special about looking up in the sky on a spring day and seeing scores upon scores of soaring, migrating hawks, falcons and eagles flying overhead.

It doesn’t happen every day, but when it does it’s a stunning sight, said Daena Ford, president of the Braddock Bay Raptor Research Center in Greece, N.Y., just northwest of the city Rochester on the southern shore of Lake Ontario.

“Raptors just have this appeal. They symbolize power, grace and strength, even for people that are not birders. Watching them in the sky is a great way to get people hooked on nature,” she said.

Northern Harrier

A Northern harrier, a species of hawk, flies over Derby Hill on the south shore of Lake Ontario in Mexico, N.Y. during hte spring migration. Andrew Saunders photo.

Braddock Bay, located on the grounds of Braddock Bay Park, is one of New York State’s two, main spring “hawk watching” areas on the Lake Ontario shore for observing migrating raptors. The other is Derby Hill Bird Observatory, located on Mexico Bay, just east of the city of Oswego.

Both locations have a paid counter from March 1 to May 31, noting the numbers and species of raptors flying by each day. The numbers are posted on a board for visitors to see, which includes numbers of birds to date and past records of daily flights of each species.

Braddock Bay

Bird watchers on the observation platform at Braddock Bay near Rochester looking for migrating raptors. Daena Ford photo.

In addition to Derby Hill and Braddock Bay, volunteers from the Buffalo Ornithological Society are also at a hawk watch site this spring in Hamburg in Niagara County along the eastern shore of Lake Erie. Another well-known, Lake Erie hawk watching spot is in Ripley in Chautauqua County, but it’s not active this spring.

The paid bird counters at Derby Hill and Braddock Bay (as do the volunteers at Hamburg) download numbers and species of raptors observed on a website created by the Hawk Migration Association of North America (HMANA), the world’s largest raptor migration monitoring network with 200-plus spring and fall watch sites in five countries.

HMANA has created the world’s largest raptor migration database, allowing biologists to get a handle on how specific bird species are doing population-wise and where they’re located – or not – each year.

Red-shouldered hawk

A red-shouldered hawk at Derby Hill. Spotted during the spring migration. Andrew Saunders photo.

David Fitch, a retired administrator for the Onondaga County Metropolitan Water Board, manages Derby Hill. The 90-acre sanctuary off Sage Creek Drive, which is owned by Onondaga Audubon, has been open to the public and has been doing hawk counts in the spring for the past 42 years.

Fitch explained each spring the migrating raptors are heading northward after spending the winter down south and rely heavily on soaring, as opposed to constantly flapping their wings to travel great distances.

Once they hit the Great Lakes, the birds are reluctant to fly over large expanses of water because they’ll use use too much energy. Instead, they depend heavily on the rising warm air (thermals) creating by the warming land on the lake’s shore to help them keep afloat and soar. The majority of birds seen at Braddock Bay and Derby Hill are making their way eastward along Lake Ontario’s south shoreline before turning northward at the lake’s eastern end.

But not all the raptors gravitate to Lake Ontario’s eastern end. Ford said many of those birds sighted along Lake Erie’s eastern shoreline and some at Braddock Bay cut through the Niagara Corridor on the western end of Lake Ontario.

Turkey Vulture

A turkey vulture soars over Derby Hill during the spring migration of raptors along Lake Ontario’s south shore. Andrew Saunders photo.

Each spring, Derby Hill and Braddock compare numbers and both are among the top spring hawk watch sites in the Northeast.

As of April 20, Karl Barton, Derby Hill’s paid bird counter, posted on Facebook that he had spotted 32,460 raptors – with turkey vultures leading the list. Among the highlights of the spring so far, Barton’s figures show, is the number of golden eagles seen (72). Derby Hill’s previous spring record was 26.

Sharp-shinned hawk

A sharp-shinned hawk spotted overhead at Derby Hill during the spring hawk watch. Andrew Saunders photo.

The Derby Hill tally board as of April 20 noted 25,243 turkey vultures, 78 osprey, 293 bald eagles, 250 Northern harriers, 1.029 sharp-shinned hawks, 221 Cooper’s hawks, 1 Northern goshawk, 5083 red-shouldered hawks, 442 broad-winged hawks, 3.007 red-tailed hawks, 106 rough-legged hawks, 72 golden eagles, 176 American kestrels, 22 merlins, 7 peregrine falcons and 6 unknown birds.

“We’re about to get large numbers of broad-winged hawks coming in the next few weeks,” Fitch said. “And when they come, they’ll look like swarms of bees up there. “

Braddock Bay’s hawk watch, another public venue with adequate parking, is located within Braddock Bay Park, a town park. The main observation area is an observation platform, but birders can easily spread out at different locations within the park, Ford said.

The hawk watch in Hamburg is not a public setting. This year, about a dozen volunteers from the Buffalo Ornithological Society are taking turns at viewing area, located within the Lakeview Cemetery in Hamburg.

“We don’t have an information board. No parking lot. It’s pretty low profile. We’re in a cemetery not a town park,” said Jim Landau, who organizes the Hamburg volunteers. “We generally set up in two locations. The primary spot is right inside the cemetery’s main gate. Another site is closer to the west, closer to the lake shore. We don’t encourage field trips.”

The volunteers are counting this year from March 15 to May 15. No counting took place last year at the Hamburg hawk watch site due to the pandemic, Landau added.

Hamburg hawk watch

Volunteers at the Hamburg Hawk Watch site scan the skies for migrating raptors.

Both Ford and Fitch say the middle of April is the peak for spring hawk watching. The number of birds that can be spotted, though, vary daily, depending on the wind and the weather.

The best times to see large numbers, Fitch and Ford said, is when there’s a southernly wind.

“And when there’s a north wind or lake breeze as we like to call it, the birds fan out,” Fitch said. “It’s not that they’re not moving. They’re just not as concentrated.”

Very little migration takes place during the rain, snow or at night. he added.

Bald eagle

A bald eagle spotted at Derby Hill during the annual spring migration of raptors. Andrew Saunders photo.

Derby Hill and Braddock Bay are magnets each spring for bird watchers from across the state and beyond. As for equipment needed to spot a migrating raptor, be sure and bring “the best pair of binoculars you can afford,” advised one veteran birder. A spotting scope is also helpful.

“Particularly, when it’s warm and sunny and there’s not a cloud in the sky, the thermals take the birds up high,” Fitch said.

Beginners and those who want to learn how to identify high-flying raptors can consult field guides, the HMANA website and Youtube for helpful videos and slideshows, Fitch said. And it never hurts to ask an experienced birder lined up near you at a hawk watch site for advice or tips.

David Fitch

David Fitch manages Derby Hill.

Asked to explain his passion for raptors, Fitch described it as a journey – a journey for him over the years that including attendance at a number of Audubon-sponsored bird watching camps and visits to numerous hawk watching location around the Northeast. He talked about his “spark bird” – the bird that really got him hooked big-time on birding.

It was a golden eagle that he spotted some 30 years ago while on Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a popular hawk watch site in Kempton, Pa. It was late afternoon and this big golden came soaring right at him as he sat dangling his legs over a ledge. At its closest, the bird was only about 25 yards away as it flew by.

“I was watching it through my binoculars and I feel I made eye contact with it,” he said, “For me, it was almost an element of fear. I lowered my binoculars. It was so stunning to see how big that bird was and to have something that wild looking at me in the eye.

“I’ve been chasing another experience like that ever since.”

A golden eagle.

For more: For directions, hours and more about Derby Hill and Braddock Bay hawk watches, see their websites.

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