Standing atop a wooden tower, perched above the gnarled blanket of green brushland below, John Kaye surveys the dawn skies for movement. Kaye, a decades-long park volunteer, heads up the Hawk Watch community science project at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park.
He spends two months each spring and fall during migration season conducting hawk counts at the park, one of 250 sites throughout the U.S., Canada and Mexico that contribute to the scientific study of raptor migration. Virtual clouds of migrating broad-winged, Swainson’s and other hawks stream overhead on big migration days.
“The reason I come out here is because I love hawks,” Kaye says. “Hawk watching [is] a process that at times is very, very boring, but at other times is incredibly rewarding. What you get to see when 60,000 birds fly by you in a single morning is unmatched anywhere.”
Kaye shares the park’s bird data with resources such as eBird and HawkCount, which provide scientists, researchers and amateur naturalists with real-time data about bird distribution and abundance. “For most of us, we grew up and we saw these big birds up in the sky. We just thought, OK, they’re big birds,” Kaye says. “What's really fascinating to me is just how much different they become once you begin to study them.”
The park began participating in Hawk Watch in 2001, and volunteer efforts are what keep it going.
“If it wasn’t for our volunteers, we wouldn’t be able to get these things done,” says Roy Rodriguez, park ranger at Bentsen-Rio Grande Valley State Park. “John’s dedication is incredible.”
After more than 14 years on the tower, Kaye’s enthusiasm shows no signs of waning.
“One of the delights to me is when I have visitors come up who have either no experience or very little experience bird watching,” Kaye says.
“Not only do we have hawks to watch, but even when there aren't any hawks around, we have a wide variety of birds here in the park,” he says. “Today we’ve had something like 65 species of birds so far, of which 15 were raptors. That’s incredible for a single day’s take, and I’m only doing this for three and a half hours and I’m only doing it from an 18-by-24-foot tower. When you see those little birds and you see so many of them, it just has to move you, to understand how rich, and how lucky we are to be down here.”
