An Update on our Broad-winged Hawk Tracking Project

This year, the Harris Center entered into a new partnership with Hawk Mountain to band Broad-winged Hawks with satellite transmitters as part of their ongoing efforts to better understand the ecology and migratory behavior of this iconic species. Hawk Mountain has been using satellite transmitters to study Broad-winged Hawks since 2014, but to date no birds from New England have been tracked to their wintering grounds in South America.

Thanks to early donors to our new 50th Anniversary Fund, the Harris Center was able to cover the costs of banding a Broad-winged Hawk here in the Monadnock Region. In late spring, we convened a team of volunteers to search for the elusive nests — which is where the banding happens. So far, they’ve identified two nests in the SuperSanctuary and four more in other nearby towns. Unfortunately, COVID-19 has delayed the banding until next summer, but the birds often return to the same sites year after year, so we hope our work has not been in vain.

While we wait for fieldwork to resume, if you know of a Broad-winged Hawk nest in our area, please contact Eric Masterson by email, so we can add it to the database for next year.