Raptor migration #phenology

Have you visited Hawk Ridge in Duluth? If not, the next couple of months is usually a peak time if you’re interested in foliage viewing  and hawk migration. This year maybe not so much, depending on the wind direction and smoke plumes from the wildfires scattered over northern Minnesota.

I’ve no idea whether the smoke may affect the migration of the raptors that usually pass over Hawk Ridge. The internet and search engines yielded this assessment of the effects of smoke on raptors, but nothing on migration disruption. The Audubon Society has an assessment of how wildfires affect birds. If there’s still smoke plumes in northern Minnesota, it would be wise to protect your own lungs and wait until 2022 when we hope conditions will improve.

Taking an optimistic view that the wildfires soon will be contained and the smoke will dissipate, here’s a timeline we photographed several years ago at Hawk Ridge.

Hawk Ridge primary migration timing

Photo by J. Harrington

The current count for this year has been dominated by songbirds and nighthawks, although some raptors have been seen. If you follow the link on the raptor count, and check last year’s dates, you might be able to get a sense of when the  migration peaked.

Evening Hawk

By Robert Penn Warren

From plane of light to plane, wings dipping through 

Geometries and orchids that the sunset builds, 

Out of the peak's black angularity of shadow, riding 

The last tumultuous avalanche of 

Light above pines and the guttural gorge, 

The hawk comes. 

His wing 

Scythes down another day, his motion 

Is that of the honed steel-edge, we hear 

The crashless fall of stalks of Time. 

The head of each stalk is heavy with the gold of our error. 

Look! Look! he is climbing the last light 

Who knows neither Time nor error, and under 

Whose eye, unforgiving, the world, unforgiven, swings 

Into shadow. 

Long now, 

The last thrush is still, the last bat 

Now cruises in his sharp hieroglyphics. His wisdom 

Is ancient, too, and immense. The star 

Is steady, like Plato, over the mountain. 

If there were no wind we might, we think, hear 

The earth grind on its axis, or history 

Drip in darkness like a leaking pipe in the cellar.

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