Bird watchers flock to Alpine to take in raptor migration

 Thebry are heading our way, hurtling toward us out of the sky from the north and the east, coming by the hundreds some days, by the thousands on others. They can dive at up to 200 miles per hour. If they could read, they could scan the headline above this story from a quarter-mile away. They can travel several hundred miles a day, using only their own strength and their intuitive knowledge of the wind.

They are raptors – birds of prey – and they are invading the air space over North Jersey as they make their annual migration to the southern United States and South America.

One of the best spots to see these hawks, falcons and eagles as they pass on through is State Line Lookout at Palisades Interstate Park in Alpine, and on Sunday hundreds of bird watching veterans and novices flocked to the spot on the Palisades cliffs that provides breathtaking views east toward Long Island Sound and south to the towers of Manhattan.

To mark the migration, the Palisades Interstate Park’s New Jersey section hosted “Hawks Over the Hudson,” which included presentations by Bill Streeter from the Delaware Valley Raptor Center in Milford, Pa.

Continued:  http://www.northjersey.com/alpine/hawks.html