Written by Melissa Halvorsen, Education and Outreach Director Unlike so many people that work in the natural sciences, Elizabeth “Iza” Schwartz (they/them) doesn’t have childhood memories of family time in campgrounds and forest trails. Raised in the heart of Chicago, Iza was a true city kid. That all changed after…

Our community has lost a great friend and mentor, Jerry Liguori. There are no words to express how much he will be missed.  “I will admit the first time I met Jerry, I was a bit starstruck. In the world of hawk watching, he might be one of the (if…

By Keith Anderson Growing up in a suburb of Chicago during the 60’s and 70’s, my experiences of the time were typical. Dad worked full-time for Abbott Labs while Mom stayed home with 3 young children. It goes without saying that as children of that time, we found different ways to…

This year has been big for HWI, in fact, it was our 35th Anniversary as an organization! Anniversaries are a great time to look back at the work we’ve accomplished, and also to look forward to what we want the next 35 years to look like. If you attended our…

And just like that, we are two-thirds of the way into the 2021 fall hawk watching season. This year marks our 35th anniversary of migration monitoring as HawkWatch International, and this season undoubtedly feels special. Our crews continue to diligently keep their eyes to the skies, counting each and every…

Our Corpus Christi migration crew is entering their 7th week of counting and the skies have been busy with birds! The crew has counted nearly 25,000 Mississippi Kites and is still expecting more on the way. But, Broad-winged Hawks are unsurprisingly the site’s most numerous species so far. The crew…

During the final week of August, HWI biologists Dave Oleyar and Jesse Watson headed to north-central Washington to meet the crew and assist with getting the Chelan Ridge HawkWatch up and running. Over the next week the 5-person crew, Jesse and Dave, and our long-term partners at the U.S. Forest…

Two members of our Long-term Monitoring and Community Science team, Dave Oleyar and Jesse Watson, made the trip up to both of our Pacific Northwest sites in late August to prepare for the season. For Bonney Butte, set up was relatively easy, with just the wall tent and trapping arena…

After setting up the Manzano’s crew, Tori Thorpe and Chris Butler drove down to the Grand Canyon HawkWatch. Because the Grand Canyon site is inside a National Park, the crew gets to stay in park housing. With “camp” all ready to go, that means that setup is a breeze. The…

On the 25th of August, HWI staff members Tori Thorpe and Chris Butler met with the Manzano Mountains migration crew members for the first time at Walt and Jennifer Lehman’s home. This couple generously stores a large portion of migration supplies during the off-season. Walt has also made most of…