Cape May Hawkwatch

After ninety-one consecutive days of counting migrating birds of prey, the 2021 autumn season has officially ended. Keep reading to find out the grand total of raptors counted this season! First, I need to cover the final leg of the season.  After a slow start to the beginning of November,…...

Just like every hawkwatch in the northeastern US, the daily totals follow a bell curve throughout the fall season. They start out low in September and slowly increase until they peak in October and then slowly decrease throughout November. Unfortunately, the totals seem to be dropping rapidly during the first…...

We may have turned the corner and are squarely in the back half of the 2021 fall season, but there is no sign of slowing down at the Cape May Hawkwatch, sponsored by Swarovski Optik! On October 27th a whopping 1,197 migrating raptors were tallied, including 668 Sharp-shinned Hawks. An…...

We are smack dab in the heart of raptor migration in Cape May. Hundreds of visitors time their vacations to be in Cape May during the middle of October. The biggest raptor flights are nearly guaranteed to occur in this time frame, and any bird found in the United States…...

The Cape May Hawkwatch, sponsored by Swarovski Optik, is already one third finished! Hard to believe the month of September is already in the books. A grand total of 8,827 raptors were tallied during the first month. To put that in perspective, the September average for the previous 5 years…...

That’s all she wrote. The 2020 Cape May Hawkwatch, sponsored by Swarovski Optik, is officially finished and in the books. Stayed tuned to the end of this post for the full season total! The final 10 days of the count were what one would expect at this stage in the…...

Wind was the name of the game this week at the Cape May Hawkwatch, sponsored by Swarovski Optik. Almost every day saw sustained winds at 20mph and even up to 30mph on a few occasions. The wind direction varied greatly making counting this week either very rewarding or very frustrating.…...

This week felt more like September than November at the Cape May Hawkwatch, sponsored by Swarovski Optik. Every day this week we saw above average temperatures with dew points in the upper 60s and abundant sunshine. Although the weather was fabulous and made for some very enjoyable days on the…...