Who Wrote The Hawk Mountain Book And What Inspired It?

I stumbled upon the story via an old magazine piece and then tracked down Maurice Broun’s book, 'Hawks Aloft: The Story of Hawk Mountain'. Rather than starting with the author, think of the reason the book exists: people used to sit on the ridge and shoot hawks as they passed. That ugly pastime provoked action—Rosalie Edge purchased the property in the 1930s and set it aside as a sanctuary. Broun came on board as the resident naturalist and started counting and protecting birds. His book grew out of seasons spent on that ridge recording migration, fighting for protection, and watching public opinion shift.

So the inspiration is twofold: the urgent need to stop the hawk slaughters, and Broun’s own deep fascination with the birds he watched every fall. The result reads like both a field journal and a love letter to a landscape that showed people why raptors matter. I always feel uplifted and a little wistful after reading it.

I picked up a battered copy of 'Hawks Aloft: The Story of Hawk Mountain' at a used book sale and it instantly hooked me—Maurice Broun wrote it, and what inspired him was the combination of tragic spectacle and courageous activism. In the early 20th century, hunters and game wardens shot migrating hawks along the ridge; people treated it as sport. Rosalie Edge purchased the land in 1934 to halt that killing and establish Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and Broun, who became the sanctuary’s observer and protector, turned his seasons of watching into the book.

The writing blends natural-history observation with the narrative of conservation: counts, species notes, the personalities involved, and the broader cultural shift away from persecution. For me it’s a reminder that focused, sometimes stubborn people can change public behavior—and that books like this can keep that memory alive. I close it feeling both stirred and oddly hopeful.

Bright morning light and a coffee later, I’d tell you the story like this: 'Hawks in Flight' was written by Pete Dunne, David Sibley, and Clay Sutton, and it was born out of a need — a need for clearer, more usable information on how to identify raptors on the wing. The authors were all steeped in long-term fieldwork; they weren’t just armchair naturalists. Their observations came from repeated counts and watches at migration hotspots, among which 'Hawk Mountain' stands out as an iconic location. That ridge has hosted generations of counters, and its kettles of migrating hawks provided the raw material — the repeated sightings, the confusing juvenile plumages, the seasonal behaviors — that spurred the authors to compile a focused guide.

Beyond that, the book carries the echo of the conservation struggle that saved that ridge: the early 20th-century slaughter of migrating raptors, the grassroots push to protect them, and the creation of monitoring programs. You can read the pages and sense both the technical intent (how to ID a broad-winged versus a red-tailed at 500 feet) and the moral one (why counting and protecting these birds matters). On a personal level, every time I crack it open I get that rush of wanting to stand on a hawk watch and learn every silhouette in the sky.

I’ve spent weekends scanning hawk migration reports, so Maurice Broun’s 'Hawks Aloft: The Story of Hawk Mountain' is one of those books I always tell friends about. Broun wrote it from the perspective of someone who lived the work—he ran the site, counted the birds, and watched the community slowly come to care for raptors instead of shooting them. That firsthand viewpoint gives the book this warmth and urgency that a dry scientific monograph wouldn’t have.

The spark that set everything in motion wasn’t Broun alone; it was Rosalie Edge, a wealthy but fiercely determined conservationist who bought the ridge in the 1930s to stop the mass killing. Her action created the sanctuary and gave Broun the platform to study and protect the hawks. So the book is both his narrative and a kind of tribute to that activism. It reads like a field diary turned into a call to action, and I love how it captures the sound of wings on the wind alongside the politics of preservation.

Short, but I’ll say this plainly: Maurice Broun wrote 'Hawks Aloft: The Story of Hawk Mountain', and the book was inspired by the brutal reality of hawk shooting on the ridge and the efforts to end it. Rosalie Edge bought the land and founded Hawk Mountain Sanctuary in the 1930s to protect migrating raptors, and Broun—who worked there—documented the migration, the conservation fight, and the early years of organized hawk-watching. It’s part natural history, part memoir, and it still reads like a piece of conservation history that changed how people thought about birds of prey in North America.

Let me paint a short scene: three authors — Pete Dunne, David Sibley, and Clay Sutton — decided to tackle the messy business of identifying raptors in flight, and from that decision came 'Hawks in Flight'. The spark for their work is inseparable from places like 'Hawk Mountain' where decades of migration watching had revealed how challenging and beautiful raptor identification can be. Watching kettles of hawks wheel over that ridge, seeing how lighting and age change a bird’s appearance, and feeling the conservation urgency after the sanctuary was created all fed into the book’s existence.

What I love about this backstory is how practical curiosity turned into a resource used by birders everywhere: it’s field notes, artistry, and a conservation ethic rolled into one. Every time I spot a sharp-shinned flashing through the trees, I think about those observers at the ridge and the book they inspired — feels like standing in a long line of watchers, and I like that company.

I got hooked on raptors because of an old, dog-eared copy of 'Hawks in Flight' that I found in a thrift shop, so when you ask who wrote the hawk mountain book and what inspired it, the names that jump out are Pete Dunne, David Sibley, and Clay Sutton — they’re the trio behind 'Hawks in Flight'. That book wasn’t a random classroom project; it grew out of real field obsession. These authors combined decades of hawk-watching experience, sketches and photographs, and data from heavy hitters in the migratory-raptor world to make sense of what birders were seeing up in the sky.

The inspiration ties directly to places like 'Hawk Mountain' — the Pennsylvania ridge that became a sanctuary after Rosalie Edge shut down the hawk-shooting contests in the 1930s. That site turned into a living laboratory for migration counts, identification challenges, and conservation momentum. Dunne, Sibley, and Sutton wanted a practical, visual guide to help people distinguish raptors in flight: wing shape, flight style, profiles against different light, and those maddening juvenile molts. The book mixes art and field notes in a way that feels like standing on the ridge with binoculars and a notepad. Personally, every time I read it I feel like I’m cranking my scope to catch a kettle of hawks — it’s inspiring and a little addictive.

I got hooked on the story after reading a dog-eared copy at a tiny nature center, and it still sticks with me: the classic account is 'Hawks Aloft: The Story of Hawk Mountain' written by Maurice Broun. He was the naturalist who lived and worked at Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, and his book mixes field notes, personal recollection, and real grief over how raptors were treated in those days.

The inspiration for the book is inseparable from the history of the place. In the 1930s visitors and hunters used to shoot migrating hawks from the ridge as a so-called sport. Rosalie Edge stepped in, buying the property and creating Hawk Mountain Sanctuary to stop the slaughter. Broun, who became the sanctuary’s first caretaker and observer, watched the migration seasons, kept meticulous counts, and eventually wrote about what he saw—both the slaughter that had been happening and the slow, hopeful turn toward protective stewardship.

Reading his words now feels like tapping into a turning point in conservation: the book helped humanize raptors and showed how ordinary people could change destructive habits. It’s sentimental and scientific at once, and I still recommend it whenever someone wants a taste of nature-activist history.