Results are in from Grandfather Mountain’s annual Hawk Watch for 2025. Staff and volunteers at Grandfather Mountain, the not-for-profit nature park run by the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation, came together during the month of September for a vast citizen-science project to count and identify the numerous species of raptors during their annual journey to warmer climates.
Raptors are birds of prey, such as hawks, eagles, owls and vultures. The telltale signs of the raptor are sharp talons and a hooked upper bill. While some raptors remain in place during winter, most will travel south, where food is more abundant.
Visitors had a front-row seat to one of nature’s most stunning spectacles and were invited to join the mountain’s naturalists as they tallied the number of migrating passersby in the sky from viewing locations on Linville Peak and Half Moon Overlook throughout the month of September. Grandfather Mountain is one of more than 300 Hawk Watch sites officially designated by the Hawk Migration Association of North America.
This year saw the second-highest tally on record, with a total of 7,250 raptors recorded overhead. The average monthly total for Hawk Watch over the last 10 years is 4,909. Broad-winged hawks were the most-counted species, as they have been since the mountain’s first Hawk Watch in 2008. The year with the most birds observed from the park was 2015, when 10,723 were spotted that September.
The busiest day of the count came on Sept. 20, with 3,583 birds recorded. The second busiest day was one day earlier, on Sept. 19, when 1,101 raptors were counted.
More than 230 observation hours were invested in Hawk Watch this year, between both volunteer and staff time.
“There were only two days in September where cloud and fog cover prevented us from holding a count,” said Will Bennett, research coordinator for the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation. “The prime weather conditions throughout the month provided us with more days to collect data, which makes this year’s Hawk Watch stand out compared to rainier Septembers in the past.”
Grandfather Mountain is typically a prime spot for viewing this phenomenon because it sits along the eastern escarpment of the Appalachian Mountains, and its rocky peaks generate strong thermal uplifts and allow excellent visibility.
Aside from offering quite a show, Hawk Watch serves an important purpose; the annual counts from Grandfather Mountain and other locations help track hawk populations and migration routes over time and contribute to this growing body of research.
The goal is to accumulate a large set of data over an extended period for researchers to examine the birds’ migratory patterns and what external factors, such as climate change, may be affecting them. When it comes to conservation projects like this one, long-term data (input from Hawk Watch sites) is key in being able to better understand what issues these species are facing.
“Hawk Watch continues to provide us with important migration data,” said John Caveny, vice president of conservation and education for the Grandfather Mountain Stewardship Foundation. “Even better, the project allows guests and citizens to partake in conservation efforts, which is something we encourage here at Grandfather Mountain.”
To view more data from this year’s Hawk Watch, visit www.hawkcount.org/grandfathermountain.