The Roots of Bird Conservation in Penn’s Woods

  Native naturalists and immigrant ornithologists who began their celebrated careers in Penn’s Woods played a pivotal role in establishing America’s enduring romance with the continent’s fabled feathered tribes. Their fieldwork and studies also helped assemble and strengthen the natural science from which bird conservation emerged in the United States. Birdsong, species diversity and the...
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Hawk Mountain Sanctuary

Hawk Mountain Sanctuary is a 2,600-acre forested conservation area in eastern Pennsylvania run by the Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association for ornithological education and research. Located on the border of Berks and Schuylkill counties at the crest of the Kittatinny Ridge, the sanctuary is on one of the world’s largest migratory flyways for raptors and other bird species. The Lenape Indians who...
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From the Executive Director

PHMC plays a large role in preserving and sharing Pennsylvania history, but of course, this is not work we do alone. Pennsylvanians rely on a host of local organizations to help keep the history they care about alive. As part of its budget each year, PHMC receives $2 million for its Cultural and Historical Support Grants. This somewhat bureaucratic-sounding line item translates into meaningful...
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Soaring Above “This School in the Clouds”

Each fall, when north­west winds blast down from Canada, knowledgeable bird watchers hurriedly make their way to the Appalachian Mountain ridges that zig west, then zag south through the center of the Keystone State. Binoculars in hand, they climb and hike the rocky ridge tops to await the thousands of hawks, eagles, and falcons flying south­ward. Autumn’s winds have beckoned people to...
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Current and Coming

Photography of Design Margaret Bourke­-White (1904-1971) is best remembered as the first staff photographer of Fortune magazine, the first female war correspondent, and the woman whose photographs made the covers of Life magazine famous. Before she began traveling throughout the world to record history in the making, Bourke-White was creating evocative abstract photographs of American industry...
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