Merrimack Valley & Lowlands · Peterborough

Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory

New Hampshire's premier hawk watch — thousand-plus Broad-winged Hawk days in mid-September.

Pack Monadnock sits right where migrating raptors want to be: a bare 2,290-foot summit on a north–south ridge, southwest of the White Mountains, catching birds that funnel down between the mountains and the Connecticut valley. On a northwest wind behind a September cold front, they pour past.

The headline is the Broad-winged Hawk flight, roughly September 10–20, when kettles stack up over the summit and stream off southwest — single days over 1,000, occasionally several thousand. As the season moves into October the cast changes: Sharp-shinned and Cooper’s Hawks, Northern Harriers, American Kestrels, Merlins, then Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks, Golden Eagles, and Northern Goshawks into November.

The count is a public operation. Show up, and the counters will point out birds, explain what’s moving, and let you see how a hawk watch actually reads the sky.

Target birds here

Purple FinchState bird since 1957. Breeds statewide in conifers; numbers swing year to year with the cone crop Blue JayYear-round resident; big visible migration along ridges and the coast in fall White-breasted NuthatchYear-round resident in deciduous and mixed woods statewide Hairy WoodpeckerYear-round resident, mature forest statewide; less numerous than the Downy Red-breasted NuthatchYear-round in northern and montane conifers; irruptive elsewhere, abundant some winters and nearly absent others Broad-winged HawkCommon woodland breeder May–August; near-total departure in a tight September window Northern Saw-whet OwlUncommon breeder in northern and montane forest; a heavy, mostly invisible migrant in October

See Pack Monadnock Raptor Observatory on the migration map →