Chad Heins (Assistant Professor of Biology) has reason to be excited about the latest news from the Bethany Hawkwatch field site.
The Bethany Hawkwatch counted its 4,100th raptor of the fall season on Friday, November 22, when a Bald Eagle passed over the raptor counters. This marks the third consecutive fall with over 2,000 migrating raptors counted at the Mankato, Minnesota, observation site.
The Bethany Hawkwatch program is located on the campus of Bethany Lutheran College in Mankato. It is the second-largest raptor count in Minnesota behind Duluth’s world-famous Hawk Ridge.
Heins started Bethany Hawkwatch in 2003 and has seen its counts and popularity grow ever since. Several Bethany students together with Heins and a handful of community hawk counters take to the sky gazing every fall near the front door of Bethany’s Meyer Hall of Science and Mathematics.
Detailed counts for the fall season can be obtained at www.hawkcount.org/bethany.