Hawk Mountain Sanctuary | |
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Location of Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Pennsylvania | |
Location | Berks and Schuylkill counties, Pennsylvania, U.S. |
Nearest city | Orwigsburg, Pennsylvania |
Coordinates | 40°38′27″N75°59′32″W / 40.64083°N 75.99222°W [1] |
Area | 2,600 acres (1,100 ha; 11 km2) [2] |
Established | 1934 [3] |
Visitors | 60,000(in 2008) [2] |
Governing body | Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association [3] |
www | |
Designated | 1965 [4] |
Designated | September 14, 2019 [5] |
Location | Hawk Mountain Road, at path to North Lookout |
Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is a wild bird sanctuary in Albany Township and East Brunswick Township, located along the Appalachian flyway in eastern Pennsylvania. The sanctuary is a prime location for the viewing of kettling and migrating raptors, known as hawkwatching, with an average of 20,000 hawks, eagles and falcons passing the lookouts during the late summer and fall every year.
The birds are identified and counted by staff and volunteers to produce annual counts of migrating raptors that represent the world's longest record of raptor populations. These counts have provided conservationists with valuable information on changes in raptor numbers in North America.
The property was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2022. [6]
The sanctuary is located on a ridge of Hawk Mountain, one of the Blue Mountain chain. The Visitor Center houses a shop and facilities with parking nearby. A habitat garden next to it is home to native plants that are protected by a deer fence. The 1 mile (1.6 km) Lookout Trail runs from the Visitor Center to a number of raptor viewing sites along the ridge, the most popular being the close by South Lookout (elevation 1,300 feet [400 m]) and the North Lookout (elevation 1,521 feet [464 m]) with a 200 degree panoramic view that extends to 70 miles (110 km). Nine trails of varying difficulty are available to hikers and linked to the Appalachian Trail.[ citation needed ]
Located in the sanctuary is Schaumboch's Tavern, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1979. [7]
The area was a popular site for shooting hawks, either for sport or to prevent depredations on domestic fowl or game birds. In 1934, Rosalie Edge leased 1,400 acres (570 ha) of property on Hawk Mountain and hired wardens to keep the hunters away. [8] The wardens were Maurice Broun and his wife Irma Broun, bird enthusiasts and conservationists from New England. Almost immediately, there was a noticeable recovery in the raptor population. In 1938, the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association was incorporated as a non-profit organization in Pennsylvania, and Edge purchased the property and deeded it to the association in perpetuity.[ citation needed ]
In 1965, the sanctuary was designated a National Natural Landmark, [4] and in 2022 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. [9]
Famous visitors to the sanctuary include Rachel Carson. [10]
Through Sarkis Acopian's philanthropy, the sanctuary was able to open the Acopian Center for Conservation Learning in 2001, where students come from all over the world to participate in work-study internships, learning about ornithology, environmental science, biology, and related fields.[ citation needed ]
The peak migration time at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary varies among the various species. Time periods given here are those when the raptor has historically been counted on half or more days. Species of raptor are listed in chronological order of the start of their period of likely observation. [11]
Bear Mountain State Park is a 5,205-acre (21.06 km2) state park located on the west bank of the Hudson River in Rockland and Orange counties, New York. The park offers biking, hiking, boating, picnicking, swimming, cross-country skiing, cross-country running, sledding and ice skating. It also includes several facilities such as the Perkins Memorial Tower, the Trailside Museum and Zoo, the Bear Mountain Inn, a merry-go-round, a pool, and a skating rink. It also hosts the Bear Mountain Circle, where the historic Palisades Interstate Parkway and Bear Mountain Bridge meet. It is managed by the Palisades Interstate Park Commission, which is overseen by the State of New York.
The Allegheny Front is the major southeast- or east-facing escarpment in the Allegheny Mountains in southern Pennsylvania, western Maryland, eastern West Virginia, and western Virginia. The Allegheny Front forms the boundary between the Ridge-and-Valley Appalachians to its east and the Appalachian Plateau to its west. The Front is closely associated with the Appalachian Mountains' Eastern Continental Divide, which in this area divides the waters of the Ohio/Mississippi river system, flowing to the Gulf of Mexico, from rivers flowing into Chesapeake Bay and from there into the Atlantic Ocean.
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Hawk Mountain is a mountain ridge, part of the Blue Mountain Ridge in the Appalachian Mountain chain, located in central-eastern Pennsylvania near Reading and Allentown. The area includes 13,000 acres (5,300 ha) of protected private and public land, including the 2,600-acre (1,100 ha) Hawk Mountain Sanctuary.
Tussey Mountain is a stratigraphic ridge in central Pennsylvania, United States, trending east of the Bald Eagle, Brush, Dunning and Evitts Mountain ridges. Its southern foot just crosses the Mason–Dixon line near Flintstone, Maryland, running north 130 km (80 mi) to the Seven Mountains of central Pennsylvania, near Tusseyville, making it one of the longest named ridges in this section of the Ridge-and-valley Appalachians.
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The Raptor Trust is a wild bird rehabilitation center located in the Millington section of Long Hill Township in Morris County, New Jersey, United States, and surrounded by the Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge.
Sarkis Acopian was an inventor, industrialist, environmentalist, and humanitarian.
The Hawk Mountain Council serves over 8,000 young men and women in one of several Boy Scout programs in Berks, Schuylkill, and Carbon counties in Pennsylvania. The council has headquarters near Reading, Pennsylvania.
Scott Weidensaul is a Pennsylvania-based naturalist and author. He was a finalist for the 2000 Pulitzer Prize in general nonfiction for his book Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere With Migratory Birds.
Rosalie Barrow Edge was an American environmentalist and suffragist. In 1929, she established the Emergency Conservation Committee to expose the conservation establishment's ineffectiveness and advocate for species preservation. In 1934, Edge also founded the world's first preserve for birds of prey—Hawk Mountain Sanctuary near Kempton, Pennsylvania. Edge was considered the most militant conservationist of her time, and she clashed publicly for decades with leaders of the Audubon Society over approaches to wildlife preservation. An environmentalist colleague described her in 1948 as "the only honest, unselfish, indomitable hellcat in the history of conservation".
The Nature and Wildlife Discovery Center (NWDC) is a multi-campus nature preserve and educational center in Pueblo County, Colorado. It includes a 611-acre mountain park, a lodge, a gift shop, a museum in Beulah, Colorado, a small museum and educational center, an open-space park on the Arkansas River in Pueblo, and an adjacent raptor education and rehabilitation facility.
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Hawkwatching is a mainly citizen science activity where experienced volunteers count migratory raptors in an effort to survey migratory numbers. Groups of hawkwatchers often congregate along well-known migratory routes such as mountain ridges, coastlines and land bridges, where raptors ride on updrafts created by the topography. Hawkwatches are often formally or informally organized by non-profit organizations such as an Audubon chapter, state park, wildlife refuge or other important birding area. Some hawkwatches remain independent of any organizing structure.
Maurice Broun was an American ornithologist, botanist, naturalist, conservationist, and author.
Bake Oven Knob is a high point on the Blue Mountain ridge of the Appalachian Mountains near Germansville, Pennsylvania. Due to its location on the Appalachian Trail and proximity to many towns in the Lehigh Valley metropolitan area, it has become a popular spot for hiking.