Hawk Ridge Dawn Song! (2 Weeks in June)

Hawk Ridge is one of the premier bird migration spots, particularly for hawks, in North America. The towering hill which climbs above Lake Superior’s western end provides a focal spot on the Mississippi Flyway channeling birds to this unique geographical spot. Most birds do not like to fly across large bodies of water unless forced to during migration. Thus birds get channeled down the North Shore of Lake Superior to Duluth.

While the human counters do amazing jobs each fall and spring (bird monitoring), obviously even the most dedicated naturalists can not be present 24x7x365. In fact, the road to the Hawk Ridge Overlook is closed to vehicle traffic (and not snow plowed) each winter from December 1st to May 1st. Thus, I decided it would be fun to set up a birdsong listening station at Hawk Ridge for the first two weeks in June. As Hawk Ridge does not have power or internet, I had to set up an “off the grid” system which would run for four hours per day. The BirdNET-Pi would turn on at 3:30 am and record birds singing till 7:30 each morning. Given I live near Hawk Ridge, I personally know the “dawn song” this time of year starts about 4:15 am. My 3:30 am start time ensured I would capture the morning sing session as most birds during the breeding season will sing out during this time of day.

Exciting news … I am working with the Hawk Ridge Team to fund, build, configure and install a listening station which will listen 24×7 throughout the year and make those ID’s available to the general public by uploading to BirdWeather (learn more about BirdWeather and my own efforts throughout Northeastern Minnesota). The effort will involved solar arrays for power and a cellular modem for connectivity. No guarantees, but my research indicates this setup should work off the grid, but power usage needs to be optimized and minimized.

Finally after that long preamble … off to the statistics

Hawk Ridge Dawn Song

Dates: Monday, June 1 through Sunday, June 14 (2026)
Duration: 14 Days
Listening Time Each Day: 3:30 am to 7:30 am (4 hours per day)
Location: Within 20 yards of the viewing / counting platform (Google Maps Link)

Notes: Given the dates involved, I suspect some bird species were still migrating (mainly the “bug eaters”) while other species were back to the Northland and actively courting / singing for a mate. Please remember, many bird species will both take up residence in the Duluth area AND also migrate further north into other Boreal Forest Regions.

Unique Bird Species Identified: 40 species
Downloadable Data Including Songs: Hawk Ridge BirdNet-Pi Database tar File
1. HUGE File (600 MB)
2. Some sound files may be missing (storage limit for Pi box)
3. Download “tar file” (from my public Google Drive)
4. Extract “tar file” … Open / Read with DB Browser (SQLite)
  (or)
5. Import “tar file” into BirdNET-Pi Box
Unique Bird Calls Recorded: 2021 birds
- Recording attributes configured by me
  - Each listening session was 18 seconds in duration
    - BirdNET analyzed sound files in 3 second segments
      - Cornell BirdNET only allows 3 seconds segments
      - Thus, 18 second sound file had six sound segments
      - BirdNET-Pi only identifies one bird per listening session
  - I configured BirdNET-Pi to not allow another sound ID till after at least 120 seconds had elapsed and required a 75% confidence level pm all ID’s
  - These attributes are MORE strict than Cornell’s Merlin Birding App which will both ID the same species again immediately and accepts a confidence level of 70%