08/30/2026
Growing up near the Appalachian mountains in Pennsylvania, I remember seeing these guys more than any other species of raptor. While not named after them specifically, Hawk Mountain was a place that hunters gathered to shoot migrating raptors for fun and "sport" until the area was leased by a woman named Rosalie Edge to create the worlds first refuge for birds of prey in 1934, called Hawk Mountain Sanctuary. I wouldn't be until many years later that I began to appreciate the impact of growing up in the shadow of Hawk Mountain. As a child, the mountains and the woods seemed to go on forever, as if it was an endless frontier and we lived just inside the boundaries of civilization. In the imagination of a child, every trip over the mountains was an adventure through uncharted territory filled with mystery and danger and discovery. As an adult, the frontier got smaller both literally and figuratively. The world that these beautiful raptors live in got smaller, too.
I last visited Hawk Mountain on January 1st 2025. Seeing the raptor counts at the sanctuary tick into the thousands, thinking about all of the wild and free Earthlings who now get to spread their wings in safety as the thermals carry them over a mountain lookout, brought me back to how I've felt about Hawk Mountain and nature all my life. Seeing a red tailed hawk, even in Florida, let's me also, in a way, visit Hawk Mountain again and feel the magic of a wild and untamed world. If I close my eyes, I can smell the Pennsylvania woods in fall, hear the mountain streams negotiating their way over ancient rocks, and briefly, I dwell in two moments at once, 30 years and 1000 miles apart.
Red Tailed Hawk
August 12th, 2026
Alachua County, Florida
