Upon leaving the nest, Keene's Will Stollsteimer rediscovered a passion for birding

Dec. 3—On cold, winter mornings when Will Stollsteimer was young, his family would spread birdseed on the fresh-fallen snow just outside their kitchen window and watch as birds flocked to feed.

"It definitely shaped a lot of my childhood and my passion for nature," Stollsteimer said of birding.

As he spoke, Stollsteimer, 25, of Keene, occasionally lifted a pair of binoculars in his mittens and peered off in the direction of a winged shape gliding along the horizon. It was a cool day in late November, and patches of snow and ice dotted the open face of Pack Monadnock in Peterborough.

Like the four other birders who had made roost on the mountaintop overlooking the Wapack National Wildlife Refuge, Stollsteimer was there to count migratory hawks. This fall, he has spent about 100 hours on that rocky overlook, logging the movements of raptors, another term for birds of prey, as the bird conservation intern for the Harris Center for Conservation Education, a Hancock-based nonprofit.

"We've got a really good, roughly 180-[degree] view here," Stollsteimer said. "We'll pick up birds popping up from all over, but a lot of times where I'm looking is over toward the Uncanoonuc [Mountains] and North Pack."

That northward view tends to be where he sees the most raptors, Stollsteimer said, but it can depend on the species, the winds, the weather and the time of the season.

"It's very variable," he said. "That's why it's nice to be elevated and have a big range to really be able to scan the skies."

Because of the mountain's high elevation, its location along a north-south ridgeline and its prominent views to the north and west, Pack Monadnock is one of New England's premiere locations for watching the fall hawk migration, according to the Harris Center. The organization has been collecting raptor-migration data to inform conservation efforts for more than a decade.

The data collected have a variety of uses, Stollsteimer said, from helping scientists estimate different species' population sizes to cataloging their migratory pathways and any patterns or shifts in the timing of their seasonal movements.

Already that Saturday, Stollsteimer — who had been on the mountain for only a couple of hours — had seen an adult northern goshawk, a handful of red-tailed hawks, a couple red-shouldered hawks, a pair of turkey vultures and a few bald eagles. Some of the raptors that observers see there, such as broad-winged hawks, will migrate as far as Central and South America, he said, while others, like red-tailed hawks and cooper's hawks, will live year-round in the region.

Stollsteimer moved to Keene from Pennsylvania in August 2021 to attend Antioch University New England, where he is pursuing a master's degree in environmental studies. He became involved in the hawk watch after some local birders connected him with Phil Brown, the Harris Center's bird conservation director.

In addition to the hawk watch, Stollsteimer has also been involved in Harris Center projects mapping and modeling habitats for American kestrels, counting migratory nighthawks and capturing and banding northern saw-whet owls during their migration.

"Will is a real self-starter," Brown said in a phone interview. "I certainly appreciate that style, and it works really well for just jumping right in and getting involved in a project. He ended up filling a lot of time — crucial times — when maybe we didn't have enough coverage for keeping track of nighthawks or the raptor observatory."

Stollsteimer's knowledge of birds allowed him to start identifying and counting raptors right off the bat. And his outgoing personality meant he was always teaching passersby about the importance of the work, the different species of raptors and the joys of birding, Brown said.

"He comes from a family of birders, so I think there is something maybe in the genetics that predisposes him to be a more attentive observer and pay more attention to detail," Brown said. "He's obviously cutting his teeth really well with getting involved in these projects. The more time you put into working with others in this field, the more focused you can get as a birder and ultimately as someone who may go on to work with birds professionally."

Growing up in Newtown, Pa., a small town about 30 miles northeast of Philadelphia, Stollsteimer developed an interest in birds and the outdoors from a young age. The son of George and Barbara Stollsteimer, an orthopedic surgeon and pharmacist, Stollsteimer said his parents' science backgrounds contributed to their passion for nature, which they passed along to him and his three brothers, George, Phil and Michael.

Still, as a kid, Stollsteimer did not necessarily have the same love for birdwatching that he now embodies. Oftentimes he would tag along reluctantly when the most avid birders in his family, his mom and aunt Judy Hayman, planned birdwatching expeditions. In one instance, when he was about 10 or 12, he remembers being dragged along on a driving route through New Jersey, where they had gone birding several times before.

"It was a little bit of a drive to get there, almost two hours, and I wasn't really expecting to see anything super cool," Stollsteimer said. "So I was definitely reluctant; that is not what I had for my day plan, that is for sure."

The drive was largely uneventful, he said, until the very end when the group spotted a snowy owl at the edge of the road — up close and personal.

"I had never seen a snowy owl before," Stollsteimer said. "I was young, and it reminded me of 'Harry Potter.' That definitely changed my tune, and I was a bit more open to it from that point forward."

From there, his interest in birding only continued to grow. When he was around 18 years old, he encountered his "spark bird" while hanging out around the neighborhood with his younger brother Phil.

"We birders always talk about our spark birds," Stollsteimer said. "The bird you see for the first time and you're like 'Wow, I've got to start looking for these.' "

Phil had spotted a group of migratory songbirds in a patch of trees and, after running home to grab a scope, Stollsteimer spotted a blackburnian warbler — his spark bird — and a scarlet tanager for the first time.

"Two really bright birds, just eye-catching," he said. "That for me was like, 'Oh wow, this is so cool. I have an opportunity to go look for these myself, whenever I want.' They're bright, eye-catching, beautiful."

But birding, in many ways, remained little more than a hobby for Stollsteimer for another few years. When he enrolled in undergraduate studies at DeSales University in Center Valley, Pa., in 2016, he initially explored fields like physical therapy or medicine. Soon though, he decided he wanted to pursue a career that would have him spending more time outdoors and went on to graduate with a degree in biology.

"Everybody is kind of working on improving human life, and I think it's good to try to advocate for other species that can't really advocate for themselves," he said.

Even at Antioch, much of the work he initially became involved in focused on native plants, not birds. Working with New England flora, Stollsteimer said he came to realize just how close of a relationship exists between birds and native vegetation. If you plant a native berry bush, he said as an example, several local species of birds will arrive within weeks, if not days.

"I realized that birds were such a great indicator species of habitat health," Stollsteimer said. "You can learn so much from the area just by knowing what birds are around, and that kind of sparked my interest and I got way, way, way into it."

Stollsteimer said his dream is to open his own environmental consulting business back home in Pennsylvania so he can work with landowners to help make the habitat on their property more natural, native and supportive of wildlife.

"I have the skills to really see what is around and make observations about what your habitat may be missing or benefit from and increase your biodiversity by x, y or z," he said. "I think that could really fill a niche in that specific area."

In the meantime, though, Stollsteimer said he plans to continue working for the Harris Center while finishing out his master's degree at Antioch. Specifically, he said, he wants to see the American kestrel project through — from mapping habitat to actually working with landowners to establish nest boxes for the species, which the National Audubon Society says has declined by as much as 90 percent in recent decades.

As far as the best places to observe birds in the Monadnock Region, Stollsteimer has a few suggestions. The hawk watch is a great spot to observe raptors — and you may even witness one swoop at the plastic owl the Harris Center set up just a feet away from the bird-watchers' perch. Dillant-Hopkins Airport in North Swanzey is another popular birding area, he said, as is Surry Mountain Lake.

But, he said, one of the beauties of birding is it can be done almost anywhere.

"One of my favorite places to bird is right in my backyard," he said. "It's a tiny little yard in Keene, so not a ton of crazy birds, but if you spend enough time there, you'll pick some interesting things up."

As for his favorite bird?

"My favorite bird is the one I'm looking at at that moment."

Ryan Spencer can be reached at 352-1234, extension 1412, or rspencer@keenesentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter at @rspencerKS