Hawk Watch Fund - Help your watchsite be all it can be!

2013 Hawk Watch Fund winners display a new interpretive sign at Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch, VA.

If you coordinate a hawk watch site, chances are you have ideas milling around your head on how to make improvements. Maybe you have hopes for hiring an educator, a new tally board or platform to see over all those trees. I know I often brainstorm about all the great things I’d like to offer to our thousands of visitors each fall at the Pack Monadnock Hawk Watch in NH. New raptor silhouettes for education programs or an interpretive sign labeling all the mountains in the landscape would be great!

Whether sites are managed by state agency, non-profit or one or more raptor enthusiasts, we all seem to share the same challenge…finding ways to sustain our counts. We all seem to be struggling financially in one way or another. That is why HMANA created the Hawk Watch Fund to offer support to the hawk watching community. The purpose of this Fund is to provide grants through the production of educational materials and displays, construction and maintenance of viewing platforms, hiring of hawk watchers, or purchase of equipment. The grants are made through a competitive application process and judged annually by a committee appointed by HMANA.\

Last year’s winner was Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory in Duluth, MN. They received $1,000 in support of a Migration Monitoring Count Traineeship last fall which was a great success.

Applications may be submitted between December 1, 2015-February 15, 2016 and grants will be announced and applicants informed by April 1, 2016.

Please see www.hmana.org for guidelines and application.

Good luck!