Document Type

Research paper

Publication Date

5-2023

Abstract

We have been studying year-round raptor migration phenology across the United States and North America for multiple decades now. Hawk Mountain Sanctuary’s Autumn migration hawk count began in 1934 and is the longest running raptor migration count in the world. A decline in total raptor counts passing through Hawk Mountain’s North Lookout is well documented and much research has already been done in what could be the main causes for this decrease in counts year-over-year. We know that cold front passages have long been associated with autumnal migration in northeastern North America. Using updated analysis techniques, we examined 60 years’ worth of Hawk Mountain migration counts in relation to local climate variables.  The data was aggregated on an autumnal basis and the climate variables of interest were pulled, cleaned and sorted along with our target variable: the total raptor counts. For numeric non-target attributes, we recorded and visualized many scalar statistical values. Hawk Mountain’s temperature data has not been consistently recorded until around 1980, so, we merged NOAA Allentown weather station data for the days we see in the original dataset. Using this data, we were able to get a good understanding of initial correlations between weather attributes. Linear regression model evaluation using the Pearson Correlation Coefficient was run in order to try to find the best combination of predictors in order to predict the movement of the total raptors migrating through Hawk Mountain’s north lookout.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

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