Hawk Mountain

 

Spotted Lanternfly at Hawk Mountain

24 September 2026

Despite knowing Plain Jim is always very early, when he texted at 6:21 a.m. on September 16 that he was outside my house, I texed back that I was nowhere near ready.

I was still scurrying around when he and Tom knocked on the door a few minutes later. We'd planned for a 6:45 departure; it wasn't even 6:30.

There wasn't much to pack into the back of Tom's electric car for our overnight trip to rural Pennsylvania. We were on the road before 6:45. I was tired, not having had a good night's sleep, despite every effort to go to bed early.

They mentioned that the ornaments I had hanging in the entryway were dusty. I keep the floors, kitchen, and bathrooms clean. The glass gets wiped down only once or twice each year. I'm not gonna win a housekeeping award. Not with two cats and a book-hoarder anyway.

Tom's electric car, now a year old, fascinated Jim. Much of the conversation during the drive centered around the overwhelming amount of features, the plethora of built-in cameras, and how much better it is to be vegan driving an electric car. My little hybrid Prius is 11 years old. It doesn't have any of this newfangled stuff, much of which is standard now.

Waze took us up Route 31. There was little traffic at this early hour. North of where the road splits from Route 202, I started paying attention to any road that had a traffic light. There are few ways to cross the road on a bike in the vicinity of Round Valley Reservoir. We got onto Route 78 near Clinton; then it became a game for me to try to recognize where we were. It didn't last long. When we reached Pennsylvania, I stopped paying attention.

Hawk Mountain is northwest of Allentown and almost due north of Reading. The Hawk Mountain Sanctuary, on a road that leads nearly to the top, sits on land that used to be a prime spot for hunting hawks. 

We had arrived before Jack H and Dorothy, so we took a look around the nature center's ampitheater.

Jack H and Dorothy said they'd catch up to us. We began the short walk through the woods to the South Lookout.

There's a whiteboard with daily and seasonal tallies of the bird species expected to migrate through. The vast majority of migrants so far were broad-winged hawks.

The trail to the South Lookout was uphill but well-groomed.

Getting to the edge of the lookout required a bit of rock-hopping. Jack H and Dorothy caught up to us here.

In the distance, the prominant ridge was the Pinnacle, which Our Jeff, Heddy, and I hiked in May 2024.

There was a ranger seated at the lookout, pad in hand for the hawk tally. I chatted with him a bit, asking stupid questions (they don't hunt as they're riding the thermals; numbers might be declining; you can tell them apart by the wing shape and flying style).

We got back on the trail to get to the North Lookout. On the way, I found a cluster of orchard orbweaver spiderlings on their webs. I had SpiderCam with me, so I used it, but there wasn't time to mess with the lighting or the focus. People were waiting.

There were more rocks on the trail now. We reached a steep section that included a handrail.

Then we rounded a corner and "Uh oh."

These were nominally stones set as stairs.

I found it easiest to grab the railings and use my upper body to skim over the steps, as if I were on crutches. Those with poles couldn't use both arms and proceeded more slowly.

Then we reached the North Lookout. I didn't think to take a picture of the pile of rocks in front of us. It looked as if a piece of heavy machinery had dumped its load at the top of the mountain. Tom has a good photo.

There were several rangers at the top.

We picked our way through the rubble in search of a flat place to sit. My first choice was a bad one. I was in a crevice. When people pointed out "kettles" of hawks coming into view, I couldn't easily see them.

I wormed my way over to a higher rock. The hawks, riding the thermals, were so far away that, even through my binoculars, they were grayish blurs silhouetted by the sun.

The view was worth the hike.

Tom had his telephoto lens. He got some good pictures, which he posted on his blog.

My hiking poles, secured, unused, to my Camelbak for the entire hike, photobombed this picture. 

As the air warmed and groups of hawks drifted past, I noticed that spotted lanternflies were cruising the lookout.

An occasional monarch butterfly migrated through. Those were also being counted. They, too, were too far overhead and moving too quickly for me to photograph.

Tom saw a katydid land near him. I scooted over to get some pictures with my phone.

Early into our stay on the lookout, a class of middle schoolers had descended, taking up every available rock. One of the rangers came down to point out passing birds.

Not many of the students seemed engaged in the migration. One, next to me, said, "This is boring." It sort of was, after a while.

Around noon, we fought our way through the students to the top of the lookout. I happened to be standing by a pair of the middle school teachers when one of them told a student to put his phone away. "No phones, bell to bell," she explained to me. She said it was a new policy that seemed to be working.

A decoy owl on a post was meant to attract the migrating birds. But if they don't hunt while they're riding the thermals, was this meant for the ones who might be resting for the night?

We returned to the path to retrace our steps, making little side trips when there was something to see.

One side trip was to the original hunting area, "The Slide," where, in the woods, there was the foundation of the old hunting lodge. 

The trail here ended at what might once have been a lookout; now it was overgrown. The path to and from the lookout was through a small ravine.

Our next side trip was to the Bald Overlook, requiring a short rock scramble.

We didn't bother going off the trail for the next opening.

We stopped again, briefly, at the South Overlook. In the center of this picture, you can barely make out what looks like a river of rocks. It's a river of rocks. We'd passed the trailhead for a trail called "River of Rocks" that itself is a river of rocks that takes you to the River of Rocks. (I mentioned this to Our Jeff when I got back. He said he'd hiked the River of Rocks and it was as bad as it sounds.)

I took pictures from the upper area this time, where the ground is level and there's a bench.

At the bottom of the trail, almost at the entrance, was a fenced-in native plant garden with a little path through it. There was a little waterfall next to a pond.

Tom pointed out the eagle sculpture. "Eagle butt!" I said.

Of course, I had to photograph the grass spider living on the railing by the pond.

The path wrapped around to the front of the eagle butt.

We went into the sanctuary's little museum and gift shop. We spent time with the 3D map, figuring out where we were and what we'd been able to see from the lookouts (upper left in this photo).

We puttered around the gift shop for a bit. I was almost out the door when I saw this t-shirt. I had to get it. If you ride a road bike in New Jersey, you'll get the joke.

I'd packed a lunch, but I'd been too beat to dig it out of my backpack when we were on the North Lookout. Now we were back in our cars and headed for ice cream. Hungry now, I ate a small protein bar on the way so that I wouldn't entirely make ice cream my lunch.

I don't remember what town we were in that had the ice cream parlor. There was nobody out and about. We were the only ones in the shop. The scoop size ended up being far more than generous. The spoons changed from yellow to green when they hit the cold ice cream. I had two different flavors of peanut butter. It was the best lunch I'd had in a long time.

On our way to the hotel, Tom and Jim were discussing our plans to visit the Trexler Nature Preserve the next day. Here, we learned, would be a herd of elk and a herd of bison. There was also a zoo. 

"Are there moose?" I asked.

"No moose," Tom said.

"Awwwwwww," I whined, and Jim was impressed by my display of disappointment.

We checked into our hotel on the outskirts of Allentown and agreed to meet in the lobby at 6:00. I got cleaned up with enough time to take a half-hour nap.

Dinner was at Hops in Fogelsville (wherever that is). Having recently returned from Portland, Bar Harbor, and Portsmouth, I was pleasantly surprised at how little all that food cost us. Plus, there was a Moosehead moose head on the wall.

We were back at the hotel before 8:00 p.m. The plan was to be ready to leave by 8:45 a.m. the next morning.

Everyone I was with was a morning person. 8:00 to them was probably like 10:00 to me. I'd made it a point not to bring my laptop. I had a book instead. A real book. Paper and all. That didn't stop me from my usual political news doomscrolling on my phone first. 

On the nightstand was a cheezy Allentown postcard. I found a pen and scribbled down notes from the day so I could write a thorough blog post later. (You're welcome. I also wrote the date as August instead of September, becuase I'm truly losing track of time now that I'm barely working.)

I was so sleep-deprived that I managed to turn the lights out before 10:30 p.m.

I woke up the next morning before my 6:30 a.m. alarm. I thought I was being proactively early, but when I got down to the breakfast area, Jack H, Dorothy, and Tom were already halfway through their meal. Jim had most likely come and gone at this point.

I was pleasantly surprised to find nonfat yogurt, a banana, and ceral, which was pretty close to what my breakfast normally is. The coffee was pretty far from what mine normally is. I hadn't expected more than brown water anyway.

We checked out and made our way to the Trexler Nature Preserve. I asked, "If you cross an elk and a bison, do you get a moose?"

The entrance road we were on led to a wide, flat, paved, stream crossing. Tom vetoed that. Maybe in his old Baha, but not in his new vegan electric car. We found a parking lot on this side of the water.

The trail we were following was called the "Elk Viewing Trail." It followed the Jordan Creek.

The air was warm and humid. Before we started, I'd zipped off the leg sections of my hiking pants and was glad to be in shorts.

I found a Mangora in her web. I had SpiderCam with me and I was going to use it.

I had to scurry to catch up with everyone. They were on a footbridge over Jordan Creek. Upstream was a covered bridge.

I found a bronze jumping spider. I couldn't get its entire body in focus at once with SpiderCam's auto setting, and there was no time to mess around with that.

On the other side of the creek, the trail went up. Straight up. I went from dry to a ball of sweat in about a minute.

Tom assured us we were almost at the top. Nobody believed him. He didn't believe himself.

I was thinking, "This is a Tom ride" when I did finally find the top.

The sky really wanted to rain.

And here, next to a road, was the herd of bison.

I spent more time looking for spiders among the tattered webs of the fence than I did at the bison behind it.

A handful of milkweed bugs scoured the surface of a milkweed seed pod.

I almost got a spider in focus, but it scooted into a corner when I got close.

Jim called from across the road, "You're gonna wanna come over here when you're done."

Yeah, we were pretty high up.

We followed the trail as it led back into the woods. I found a pair of milkweed tussock moth caterpillars. Snazzy!

Jim was ahead when I veered off to the left onto a side path that offered a view of a hill on the other side of the valley. Jim found us there, emerging from another side path.

"It reminds me of Round Valley," I said. There's a spot on Stanton-Lebanon Road where there's a clearing off to the right, before you get to the Three Bears. It sort of looks like this, but without the trees.

The descent from there was less steep, and we got back to the road through the creek, only we were on the opposite side now.

It was starting to drizzle. We walked back over the foot bridge

I found a picture-winged fly dancing on the railing.

Our next stop would be the Allentown Farmers Market. I changed out of my soaked t-shirt into the dry vulture one.

First, though, Tom wanted to find the elks. He drove to another part of the preserve, but we never did find them.

The farmers market wasn't crowded. It was well laid out and full of sugary things one would want to buy if one had not eaten lunch. I had not eaten lunch. I bought some sugary things to take home.

I was confused when I found the group ordering food for lunch and seated at a table. I nibbled on some of the dried kiwi and dried strawberries I'd bought. "I still have my PB&J from yesterday in the car," I told them. "I'll eat it on the way home." Tom admonished me not to make a mess in the back seat. I didn't. I used my sweaty bandana as a tablecloth over my lap.

We arrived at my house in the middle of the afternoon. I spent the rest of the day unpacking and doing laundry. It wasn't until two days ago that I remembered to dust the ornaments.