October Program Raptor ID 101: Duluth Edition with Erik Bruhnke

Have you ever wondered what that speck of a hawk is way out on the horizon, or the one circling right over your head? Would you like to learn about the raptors found migrating throughout the Duluth area, including ones right in your backyard? Are you interested in fine-tuning your hawkwatching skills? Come join us as Erik Bruhnke shares a wealth of knowledge about raptors along with catchy identification anecdotes, and an abundance of his raptor photography, to help you enhance your appreciation and identification skills of these splendid birds.

Erik Bruhnke has loved birds since he was a child looking at chickadees. In 2008 he graduated from Northland College in Wisconsin with a Natural Resources degree. Erik taught field ornithology at Northland College for three semesters. Between 2009 and 2014, he spent his summers conducting field research focused on breeding bird transects in Upper Michigan, point counts for a breeding bird atlas in Minnesota and Wisconsin’s Northwoods, vegetation and breeding bird surveys throughout wind farms in North Dakota’s prairie potholes, and cavity-nesting surveys in the Cascade Mountains of Oregon.

A devoted raptor nerd, he is drawn to hawkwatches. Starting at the end of college and after graduating, he was an interpreter for six fall seasons at Hawk Ridge Bird Observatory; counted migrating raptors at the Corpus Christi HawkWatch in Texas in 2015; and was the 2016, 2017, and 2018 hawk counter at the Cape May Hawkwatch in New Jersey. He is thrilled to be back at Hawk Ridge, to volunteer-assist with interpreting to visitors and to help count the migration. Visibible migration makes him happy. Erik’s wildlife photography has won national awards, and he’s written for the American Birding Association’s Birder’s Guide, BirdWatching magazine, and Bird Watcher’s Digest. Erik is a full time guide for Victor Emanuel Nature Tours (VENT) and also runs his own business, Naturally Avian. In his free time he loves to cook and bake, often following the recipes from his omas and opas.