Hawkwatch the Horseshoe and Hawkwatch At Home! I’m fortunate to live in a fantastic raptor migration corridor, with a rich history of hawkwatching, and active participation in community science, all right here in the “Golden Horseshoe” of Ontario. As a raptor biologist, that really gets my brain working! So I’m embarking on a 2-month, socially distant mission to Hawkwatch The Horseshoe, and demonstrate the joy of Hawkwatching At Home, to help raise awareness about raptor conservation across Ontario and improve accessibility of this activity I love. In this time I’ll visit established sites run annually by non-profit and community groups, to the extent they are currently COVID-suitable for visitors, and celebrate their efforts. I’ll visit less well-known sites across Ontario that aren’t monitored annually (see https://hawkowlr.wordpress.com/ for more details and planned locations). But I’d most like to discover and highlight YOUR “hidden” hawkwatches, which may occur across Ontario. These might be in ag. fields, beaches, parks and conservations areas, or the less glamorous parking lots and rooftops; as long as it has good visibility and migrating raptors, I’ll seek it out and share the day with you! When I can’t get out of Toronto, I’ll Hawkwatch At Home, exploring for new sites in the city by bike, to find more spots where the community can enjoy this annual passage. Through this effort I hope to: 1) meet and highlight the work of community scientists, while sharing their work with the broader community, 2) develop public outreach content to showcase this accessible, COVID-safe activity in our communities, 3) demonstrate the ecological importance of those communities as migration corridors, and 4) compile a database of Ontario’s “Hidden Hawkwatches”. Through active engagement on social media, I hope to encourage a larger and more diverse community to witness raptor migration, raise awareness about anthropogenic threats to raptors, and encourage protections for raptors beyond Species-At-Risk management approaches. I hope to increase the accessibility of Hawkwatching to diverse communities, by exploring and sharing hawkwatch sites that can be found close-to-home in urban, suburban & rural settings, so those communities can Hawkwatch At Home. I also want to encourage you to Hawkwatch The Horseshoe or Hawkwatch At Home, and share your experiences across Ontario on social media! If this project is successful, it will lay the foundation for a more ambitious community science project in 2021. For this year’s work, I’ll be visiting as many hawkwatches as possible, and would love to hear from people about their fall raptor migration spots, even the “small” ones. To support this I need your help identifying local fall raptor migration spots in Ontario. If you like, we might be able to meet at your site for a socially distant Hawkwatch, or I can bird solo! For anyone who would like to share with this project, but doesn’t want their location publicly available, exact locations can be kept private and/or more suitable public locations can be explored nearby. To that concern, I am not a falconer or rogue raptor bander looking for a new “spot”, so these sites are best if they are publicly accessible. Each day I’m hawkwatching I’ll post eBird lists and the day’s highlight to Facebook and Twitter, showcasing the community I’m in. Along the way, I’ll encourage everyone to post their own experiences hawkwatching this season, highlighting their community, using the project hashtags, #HawkwatchTheHorseshoe and #HawkwatchAtHome, so we can all learn and share. Feel free to Message me here, on Twitter (@HawkowlR), or shoot me an email with eBird/iNaturalist lists or other info at: spaul.robert@gmail.com. I really think this can be a great project, and I’d love your participation and support! Thanks for your time, and good birding. Robert (Rob) Spaul, M.Sc. Raptor Biology. -- Rob Spaul, M.Sc. spaul.robert@gmail.com