Lunch & Learn Series: Golden Eagles and North America’s Eastern Flyway

HMA Lunch & Learn Series: Golden Eagles and North America’s Eastern Flyway

Wednesday, February 11 at 12:00 pm EST

The Hawk Migration Association (HMA) was joined by Nick Bolgiano for our February Lunch & Learn who talked about Golden Eagle migration through PA!

For most raptor species that migrate through Pennsylvania, the highest concentrations of migrants are seen in the southeast, especially along the Kittatinny Ridge, where the Hawk Mountain and Waggoner’s Gap hawk watches are located. An important exception to this rule is the Golden Eagle, for which the western corridor fall migration corridor through Pennsylvania hosts the highest volume of migrants. As much as 2-3 times as many Golden Eagles use this route compared to the eastern fall corridor through Pennsylvania, which includes the Kittatinny Ridge.

Six seasons of data from the Bald Eagle Mountain-Eagle Field hawk watch provide a missing piece in describing the Golden Eagle’s western fall corridor through Pennsylvania, as well as through Pennsylvania as a whole. Route data from telemetered eagles and hawk watch data on numbers, ages, and timing of flights from select watch sites give an overall coherence to the Golden Eagle’s fall migration through the state.

Nick Bolgiano is a life-long birder from State College, Pennsylvania. He worked for 23 years at Minitab Statistical Software, first as a software tester and then as designer of graphics. He has been a hawk watcher for the last 31 years at Stone Mt and Tussey Mt in central Pennsylvania. He came to believe that the fall Golden Eagle migration along Bald Eagle Mt north of State College was one the biggest missing pieces in our understanding of the Golden Eagle’s Eastern Flyway dynamics. In 2019, he teamed with Jon Kauffman of Shaver’s Creek Environmental Center to conduct a one-season hawk watch on Bald Eagle Mt. In 2025, the sixth season fall watch season happened there and now we have that missing piece.

Lunch & Learn Series: Golden Eagles and North America’s Eastern Flyway

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