Hawkeyes Birders climb high for soaring gander

Published 12:05 pm Monday, September 20, 2010

There weren’t many hawks to see at Saturday’s Hawk Watch up on the bluffs at Fort Hill, but local birdwatchers didn’t care.

The dozen or so watchers enthusiastically identified gray egrets, snowy egrets, assorted warblers and a red-headed woodpecker that caused a lot of excitement when it flew overhead with a flash of white.

Black buzzards and turkey vultures glided above the bluffs, but only one hawk — a Cooper’s hawk that cleared the tree line shortly after the group gathered with binoculars, lawn chairs, cameras and — on a hot, humid morning — hats.

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“We were hoping to see a lot of broadwing hawks,” said Skipper Anding of the Jackson Audubon Society, which organizes the watch each fall to watch the hawks on their path south for the winter. Anding said he’s seen as many as 400 to 500 of the migrating raptors, though it’s more common to sight 50 to 100 this time of year.

“I think we really haven’t had any cool fronts up around the Great Lakes to get them started,” Anding said. “They try to catch a tail wind, especially when they start across the Gulf.”

The watchers included Lorraine and Paul Kemp, newcomers to Vicksburg after moving from Iowa about a month ago to escape cold, snowy winters and be closer to their daughter and her husband, who works at the Engineer Research and Development Center. The two consider themselves beginners, though they did a little birdwatching in Iowa.

Another couple who called themselves beginners was Susan and Andy Morang. Susan Morang said the birdwatching hobby is one that older people often get into, but that younger ones ought to try.

“People don’t take the time to observe nature,” she said.

The identification process is one of the pleasures, said Bart Barrack, who came from Yazoo City with his wife, Claudia. “This hill is a great place to watch because of the water down below, (birds coming down from) the Delta and the hills here,” he said.

Once the Cooper’s hawk had been sighted, Barrack added, “It’s fascinating to be able to identify a bird by its flight path.” Coopers’ are smaller than others, he said, and have different flight patterns.

The Jackson Audubon Society likes to remind watchers to “look down every once in a while, as there are many other cool critters in the wild to be seen.” Anding told of once being in a group watching a couple of redtail hawks chase a rabbit across the field below Fort Hill. The rabbit made it into the trees, which he cheered while the other birders, rooting for the hawks, let out a collective moan.

Usually birders will be walking, and it’s unusual for a group of watchers to plunk down chairs and sit, said Susan Morang. The special setting on Fort Hill, with so much to observe, lends itself to a more leisurely outing.

“Some of us don’t know a lot, but we enjoy getting out in God’s world,” said Damie Brenholtz of Jackson.

“It gives me something to do on the weekends,” said Allyson Harrison, a chemist in the Environmental Laboratory at the Engineer Research and Development Center. “It started out as a reason to sit on my porch in the afternoon and have nobody bother me, and watch the birds in my bird feeder. Then I had to have a book to identify them. And then binoculars to see them. And then I had to have a camera.”

Distracted for a moment by the sighting of a roseate spoonbill flying over Centennial Lake below, which got everyone excited, Harrison added, “You can bird cheap, though. Most people don’t buy cameras, and there are bird books you can get to help you identify them.”

Anding will speak at a Jackson Audubon Society meeting Sept. 28 on “A Fascination With Birds.” The meeting at the Eudora Welty Library on North State Street in Jackson will begin with a meet and greet at 6:30, with the program following at 7.