Spectators have gathered on this blustery day, anticipating the birds' annual fall passage.
Stiff winds push the hawks low over the boulder-strewn ridge.
The waiting group of watchers rises. They set their sights. A moment later, gunfire greets the arriving hawks, and bone-crushing shot sends many plummeting to earth. Wildlife watching, especially birding, has become one of the nation's most popular pastimes, the offshoot of a vast increase in environmental awareness since the hawk-shooting days before 1934, when Hawk Mountain was transformed from shooting gallery to wildlife sanctuary. That same year, the first modern field guide, Roger Tory Peterson's A Field Guide to the Birds, rolled off the presses at Houghton Mifflin.