Raptor Birding

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- Hi, Sanford Smith here with Penn State Extension.

Today I'm joined by Andrew Bechdel and he is the bird counter of birds of prey up on a ridge, Tussey Ridge here in Central Pennsylvania.

Andrew, tell us about watching hawks and eagles and birds of prey.

How can people do that, just, you know, as a hobby, become a birder?

- Yeah, so watching birds of prey is really about patience.

So when we come out here and we look for these hawks, it often takes a long time to see them.

In addition to that, it requires a slightly different skillset than watching, say, the backyard birds in your neighborhood.

These birds are often really, really far away.

So we study things like the silhouette and the way they move, these little nuances that, over time and experience, you kind of get used to and you learn to identify them.

- Interesting, I'm wondering how you learned this.

Did you just learn it in a book?

- Yeah. - Or did you learn it on the job, so to speak?

- So I did, in preparation for this particular job, I read three different texts.

But really the way to get good at identifying these things, especially at a distance, is just through experience.

We get used to their subtle little movements and we can tell what they are, even if it's not a really great look and even if it's a really great distance.

- I see you have some binoculars on.

Do you use binoculars for most of your identification work or do you use scopes?

- So we use both actually.

So what I do is I try and scan the skies with this to see things that might otherwise be difficult to see with the naked eye.

And once we locate it with our binoculars, then we use our scopes to get a better look at it.

- Interesting.

So if you were recommending to someone what they need or what to do to get started birding and for birds of prey, what would you say?

- I would suggest either 8x or 10x binoculars.

That's the magnification.

If you choose to buy 8x binoculars, you're gonna have a wider field of view, which means you're gonna be able to look through them and see more of the sky.

But if you buy a pair of 10x binoculars like I have here, you'll be able to see things that are a little bit farther away, but you won't have that field of view that you would have with a smaller magnification binocular.

- So, Andrew, tell us why you like birds of prey.

What's so special about them?

- So when I see a migratory raptor, I feel like I'm a part of this great, wider world.

Sometimes birds, such as a broad-winged hawk, they come all the way from South America.

Now in the case of the golden eagle, they winter just south of us in West Virginia and other places in the Southern Appalachians.

But they also have a really amazing journey because they go all the way up to Northern Canada to their breeding grounds.

And many of these places are very remote places that I'll never go to.

But I feel like I have some connection to that place because I can see the golden eagle and I know it's going there and I know it's gonna breed there.

- These have been a few thoughts about watching birds of prey and birding here in the State of Pennsylvania specifically, but it applies all over.

So thank you very much, Andrew, for joining me today.