Fall hawk migration is an amazing natural spectacle, and it peaks in New Hampshire from mid-September through mid-October. The Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory in Peterborough regularly records more than 11,000 fall-migrating raptors each year.
Want to find out about the fascinating world of birds of prey like eagles, hawks, and peregrine falcons? Check out these links, and don’t forget to keep your eyes on the sky!
Naturalists Karen Rent and Susie Spikol from theHarris Center uncover the everyday outdoor magic waiting right in your backyard and over your head.
Wild at Home is a 12-episode series created for curious kids and young-at-heart adventurers from NHPR and the Harris Center for Conservation Education.
Raptor Natural History and Online Reading
Hawk Mountain Raptorpedia: Background Information on various northeastern raptors.
Children’s Books
Hawk Highway in the Sky: Watching Raptor Migration by Caroline Arnold and Robert Kruidenier. With vivid, close-up photographs and clear text, this nonfiction book highlights the work of raptor scientists and volunteers with HawkWatch International. Appropriate for readers in 4th grade and up.
The Peregrine’s Journey: A Story of Migration by Madeleine Dunphy and Kristin Kest. A beautifully written and illustrated account of the remarkable trip peregrines make each year, based on a real peregrine falcon who was tracked via satellite telemetry by the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service.
Frightful’s Mountain by Jean Craighead George. Part of the classic My Side of the Mountain trilogy, this novel tells the story of what happens to the peregrine falcon, Frightful, when Sam Gribley has to let her go free. A poignant tale of survival, adaptation and interspecies bonds, told from Frightful’s point of view.
See more books (some for adults too) at Harris Center Reads: Hawks
Activities
Create paper airplanes with hawk-shaped wings from National Audubon.
Visit Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory during fall migration or find a Hawk Watch site near you.
Videos Birds of Prey: Built to Hunt | Science Trek
Harris Center Hawks and Hawkwatching Youtube playlist
NHPBS: Journey of the Broad-winged Hawk
You can hear Wild at Home on NHPR during Weekend Edition Sunday at 9:35 a.m. every other week for 12 weeks.
Stream episodes anytime at NHPR.org, listen on the NHPR app, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts on Apple and Spotify.
Wild at Home is a series created for curious kids and young-at-heart adventurers by NHPR and theHarris Center for Conservation Education.
