The Kittatinny Ridge
An Iconic Landscape
A migration superhighway and safehouse for wildlife
The Kittatinny stretches 185 miles through Pennsylvania. Identified as the most resilient landscape in the state for adapting to climate change, this forested corridor allows wildlife to escape rising temperatures, increased floods, or drought. It has been identified by scientists as critical to the future of hundreds of animal and bird species amid a changing climate.
Superhighway for Bird and Wildlife Migration
The Kittatinny Ridge, or Blue Mountain, is part of the larger Appalachian Mountain corridor and each spring and fall acts as a superhighway for night-migrating birds and bats and day-migrating raptors and songbirds. Scientists have shown that this mountainous corridor and its nearby forested slopes and pastures and farmlands in the valleys provide critical habitat, roosting locations, and feeding areas for these migrants.
A Forest Reserve
Hawk Mountain is part of the Kittatinny Ridge, an iconic and critical landscape and designated Important Bird Area. The Sanctuary’s 2,615 acres, along with more than 13,000 acres of private and public lands, make up one of the largest protected tracts of contiguous forest in southeastern Pennsylvania.
Slopes offer contrast of habitats
Hawk Mountain’s steep, complex topography shapes its natural communities. Rocky, shallow soils, derived primarily from Tuscarora sandstone, result in slow tree growth but provide for considerable diversity of habitats. More northerly species of plants and nesting birds are found on north-facing slopes, while southern slopes provide warmth and thick cover for birds and mammals that winter here. The Nature Conservancy has identified the Ridge as a climate resilient landscape due to the continuity of forested habitats with north and south slopes that provide corridors for plant and wildlife movements.
The ever-changing forest
This mountaintop forest was once clearcut for timber and charcoal making and burned to maintain blueberry heaths. A keystone species, the American chestnut, was lost to blight by 1950. Today red maple, birch, hickory, black gum and five species of oak are the primary tree species, although some oaks suffered heavy losses in 2016-2020 due to synchronous outbreaks of defoliating caterpillars and drought. This has created pockets of regeneration and we are now seeing more birds associated with thickets nesting in the forest interior. The present-day second-growth forest is 100 to 150 years old and has increased in complexity. It remains a stronghold for species that thrive in older forests such as black-throated green warblers and pileated woodpeckers.