BRUCE MACTAVISH: Why do hawks use southwestern NL for migration?

For four out of the last five years, I have made a week-long trip to the Codroy Valley during October.

General birding in this beautiful corner of Newfoundland during autumn migration is an attractive enough idea, but I had a more focused mission: monitoring the hawk migration. I’ve been trying to figure out what makes it work at the southwestern corner of the province.

This October, I jumped at an unusual opportunity to house-sit for two weeks in the Grand Codroy River Valley. The timing, Oct. 6-20, could not have been more perfect. A good sampling of observations within that time period would certainly add knowledge to what we already think we know about the hawks migrating out of Newfoundland in the autumn.

Hawks, in general, are not that fond of flying over large expanses of water but will do it when they have to.

The shortest southward route off the island of Newfoundland to the mainland is from the southwest corner of the island to the north tip of Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia. The distance between these points is about 100 kilometres.

Hawks have broad wings made for soaring and floating aloft. In order to cross the 100 kilometres of water, the hawks will look for favourable winds to give them lift and the least resistance to the wind.

You might think a northeast tailwind would be the ideal wind direction to push them across the Cabot Strait. However, northeast winds are often accompanied by precipitation, which hawks do not like for flying.

I did discover that a side wind to the hawk’s direction to Nova Scotia worked, much in the same way a sailboat moves forward with a wind 90 degrees to the direction of travel. If the wind was southeast, and not too wet, the hawks would sail over my observation post and disappear toward Nova Scotia.

My observation post was near the infamous Wreckhouse. A short dirt road called Red Rocks Road bisects the hills from the Trans Canada Highway to the ocean. Hawks gain altitude from updrafts over the hills to launch their journey across the water to Nova Scotia. The hawks are often much higher than the hills and difficult to see at all without binoculars as they leave the province.

In the past, the highest counts from Red Rocks Road came during southeast winds. On five dates over the years, top counts ranged from 100-250 hawks during a morning watch.

Over 90 per cent were sharp-shinned hawks. There were also smaller numbers of merlins, northern harriers and occasional northern goshawks, American kestrels, peregrine falcons, bald eagles and rough-legged hawks. Once, a golden eagle flew over.

The 2026 watch started much as expected. On a southeast wind and high overcast skies, I counted 155 sharp-shinned hawks flying overhead in a 2.5-hour period on Oct. 8. They were pointed toward Nova Scotia as they left Newfoundland.

Unexpected happenings were soon to come. On Oct. 11, I had a record-smashing morning count of 700 sharp-shinned hawks, and two days later, on Oct. 13, 661 sharp-shinned hawks flew over Red Rocks Road.

The wind on these days was light to moderate northwest. The kicker was that the hawks were flying north into the wind and not headed to Nova Scotia. Our human logic would have thought a northwest wind, being a side wind, would help propel the hawks forward toward Nova Scotia. But the hawks know what is best, and they had a different idea.

It was not a good wind for them to leave the island at all. I am speculating the northwest wind was good for getting plenty of hawks from across the island to the jumping-off point at the southwest extremity of Newfoundland, but for some reason they would not make the jump across to Nova Scotia. Instead, they turned northward along the coast and flew back into Newfoundland.

Obviously, there is still plenty to learn about the hawk migration out of Newfoundland in the autumn.

Witnessing the hawks in the act of migration is an awe-inspiring experience.

Other migratory movements of birds were also observable at Red Rocks Road. Big flocks of robins were on the move. Flocks of pine siskins and white-winged crossbills were in a hurry to somewhere.

There are few other places in Newfoundland and Labrador where diurnal migration of landbirds can be seen with such regularity and volume as it can on Red Rocks Road.

The Codroy Valley, of course, has its own attractions. Waterfowl are abundant. The flock of several hundred Canada geese feeding each evening in a field across the estuary held a snow goose one day. Sparrows and warblers are active in the alders and roadside bushes. Rarities can be found among them, such as the white-eyed vireo and prairie warbler this year.