It was a quiet morning earlier this week at the Bake Oven Knob, a rocky outcrop on the Blue Mountain near Germansville.

One man relaxed with his dog in a hammock slung between trees, and a trio of hikers made their way to the top of the mountain and marveled at the view.

Above them, a few raptors swirled with the gentle wind currents - and without a doubt, their presence was noted and recorded by volunteers with the annual Bake Oven Knob Autumn Hawk Watch.

“The purpose of the watch is to conserve these species,” said Chad Schwartz, executive director of the Lehigh Gap Nature Center in nearby Slatington. “If we keep track of the numbers over time, it helps us to notice if there are any changes in their population.”

The nature center oversees the long-term migration research project. It began in 1961 as a descendant of the watch at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in Kempton.

Just a few years earlier, folks were shooting hawks and other raptors for sport - and money - from “lookouts” like the Bake Oven Knob and Hawk Mountain.

“Before the establishment of the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in 1934, raptor hunting was very common along the Blue Mountain,” Schwartz said. “A lot of these birds were considered vermin. They were considered agricultural pests, and people thought that they would eat livestock and pets. There was a lot of misinformation and misunderstanding out there.”

Because of that, the state placed bounties on the birds. Anyone who killed a particular species, and mailed the specimen to the state, would receive a payment.

Sometimes it was as little as 50 cents.

“This was not just something that people did for fun, they were actually encouraged to kill these birds,” Schwartz said.

By the 1930s, hunters crowded the local overlooks and shot down hundreds of birds each day.

A group of conservation-minded citizens heard about the killings and sent a photographer to document the carnage. The pictures were so shocking that dialogues began, and the hunting was outlawed.

First watch

Hawk Mountain eventually became Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and began its first autumn hawk watch in 1934.

Bake Oven Knob eventually followed suit.

The count begins on Aug. 15 and continues through Thanksgiving. Spotters carry checklists to note species such as ospreys; bald and golden eagles; northern harriers; sharp-shinned, Cooper’s, red-shouldered, rough-legged and broad-winged hawks; black and turkey vultures; northern goshawks, American kestrels, peregrine falcons and merlins.

Depending on the weather and wind currents, they watch from the knob’s 1,600-foot high South Lookout, which affords a panoramic view of the mountain ridge and the birds’ flight path, or the nearby North Lookout.

And while it’s only about a month in, Schwartz said this year has been a good one, with more early migrants than in recent years.

“Some scientists are hypothesizing that it has a lot to do with the wildfires in Canada but nobody knows for sure at this point,” he said. “That’s another good point for why we have to study these things over time. We can compare and contrast.”

Rise of eagles

He noted a time when data from hawk watches began to show a decline in the number of bald eagles.

“When they observed this decline, especially compared to recent years, they knew that something wasn’t right,” Schwartz said.

Scientists got on board, and eventually determined that the use of the pesticide DDT was to blame. If ingested, the eagles would lay eggs with very thin shells that prevented their offspring from hatching.

DDT was banned, and the eagles’ numbers eventually rose.

“By keeping track of these populations over time, it helps us to understand if the population is healthy or not or if there are effects of climate change or any other kind of things,” he said. “Just because we see fewer birds migrating past the hawk watch it doesn’t necessarily mean that the population is suffering. It just might be a change in their migratory behavior. This helps us to keep track and figure things out.”

In recent days, counters have been spotting broad-winged hawks.

“This week, we expect to see their peak,” Schwartz said. “It is the only soaring hawk that migrates in groups. Sometimes several dozen or several hundreds will come together at one time. It’s pretty exciting.”

Rick Morrissey, of Walnutport, has been a volunteer counter at Bake Oven Knob since 2001. Like others, he logs his daily counts into websites like the Hawk Migration Association of North America’s Raptor Migration Database at www.hawkwatch.org.

Morrissey cites the migration of broad-wing hawks soaring by on thermal currents as one of his annual highlights. He’s expecting this weekend’s sunny skies and warm temperatures will make for prime broad wing migration weather.

“We are always looking for what we call the ‘Big Day,’ when there are so many birds that you need more eyes to count them,” he said.

Some days - especially when there is precipitation - are busts.

“It depends on the weather,” Morrissey said. “They’re not going to fly in the rain, for example.”

The broad-winged hawks, Schwartz said, might travel as far south as South America.

Other species will follow to South or Central America, but some - like the bald eagle - won’t travel such extensive distances.

It depends on where the best food sources are for the species, Schwartz said.

August counts saw quite a few bald eagles. This week saw numerous vultures, a species that Morrissey said “are always up there.”

More raptors

Other raptors like osprey, sharp-shinned and red-tail hawks will pick up as the season progresses.

“When the count starts getting to be above 100, then you are starting to get some serious movement,” Morrissey said.

Uncommon species such as kites, which are typically more southern birds, have been spotted, Schwartz said.

“Sometimes hurricanes will bring strange things up from the tropics. Sometimes the watchers will see sea birds go past the hawk watch. It’s exciting because every day is different,” he said.

While Morrissey has volunteered at the Bake Oven Knob for more than 20 years, he started counting at a site on Hook Mountain, New York, in the mid-1980s. He was living in northern New Jersey at the time, and recalled taking vacations from his job in October to help with the count.

He’s been to 52 hawk watch sites in several different states.

“It is a great hobby. I don’t have the eyes or patience for warblers. Instead of walking through the woods with binoculars and trying to zero in on them to identify them only to have them fly away, I like sitting up there and letting the birds come to me,” he said. “They’re just magnificent.”

Both Morrissey and Schwartz said volunteers are always needed. Many do have a background in birding, but Schwartz said anybody can learn.

“You pick up on it. It’s like solving a mystery because you use a lot of process of elimination. You’re not only looking at the shape, but also the behavior, and a lot of different things,” he said.

Results are also available by clicking on “Bake Oven Knob” on the Audubon and Cornell Laboratory of Ornithology’s BirdSource website, and the nature center’s annual publication, the “American Hawkwatcher.”