Fall Migration in the Northeast
Hawk Mountain, Cape May, & the Delaware Bayshore
September 19-27, 2024
Register by clicking the ‘book now’ button above, or by contacting the Ventures office. We accept credit cards for an additional fee (2.9% for MC, Visa, Discover; 3.9% for AmEx), but you may also pay by bank transfer, cash, check, or money order. This Venture is limited to 10 participants.
Cost of Hawk Mt/Cape May Venture $3,195 from Philadelphia, based on double occupancy (Single supplement $525) Price includes: All transportation and accommodation, all meals, admission fees, information packet & bird checklist, and guide/leader service throughout. Not included: Transportation to Philadelphia, alcoholic beverages, and items of a personal nature.
Enjoy fall migration at two of the Northeast's most famed migration hotspots, Hawk Mountain & Cape May. Expect raptors, shorebirds, and neotropical migrants galore!
In the fall, thousands of migrating raptors, representing as many as 18 different species, stream along the ridges of the Appalachian Mountains or down the Atlantic coast on their way south. Straddling eastern Pennsylvania’s Kittatinny Ridge is Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, a 2,380-acre preserve established in 1934 as the world’s first refuge devoted to birds of prey. The sanctuary’s North Lookout, a 1,521-foot rocky promontory, provides a spectacular panorama of the Appalachian ridges and valleys, and, depending on wind patterns, often affords close-up views of raptors gliding along Hawk Mountain’s unique ridge topography.
Cape May, New Jersey, at the tip of a peninsula between Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean, is another premier raptor viewing site and is famous for its songbird migration as well. While traveling between these two birding ‘meccas,’ we will visit Bombay Hook National Wildlife Refuge on Delaware Bay to see waterfowl, waders, and shorebirds, and take the ferry across the bay from Lewes, Delaware to Cape May. Late September and early October brings the greatest variety of raptor species, not to mention a very good passerine migration, and the bonus of crisp, cool fall weather and colorful autumn leaves.
What birds can we hope to see?
Raptors, including Sharp-shinned Hawk, Cooper’s Hawk, Broad-winged Hawk, Red-tailed Hawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, Peregrine Falcon, Merlin, American Kestrel, Osprey and Northern Harrier, Bald Eagle; and a large number of resident and migrating passerines, such as Scarlet Tanager, 15+ species of Warbler, Several Vireos, waterfowl, waders, and shorebirds – all in all, a great selection of birds along the Eastern coast of North America.