Every autumn, thousands of migrating birds of prey appear over the Golden Gate near San Francisco, California.

Why are they here?

How are they doing?

Where do they go?

That's just what the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory is here to learn...

We are recruiting Hawkwatch AND Banding volunteers for the 2008 migration season. Click here to learn more. 2007 HawkWatch daily totals View 2007 Telemetry blog here If you have found a banded bird of any kind, click here to go to the USGS Bird Banding Lab Eurasian Kestrel banded at GGRO 10/23/2007!!! Click here for more info. Have you seen a tagged Northern Harrier? Click here for more info. The Golden Gate Raptor Observatory (GGRO) is three staff members and more than 280 community volunteers, all dedicated to studying the autumn hawk migration at the Golden Gate. The GGRO's guiding philosophy is that public involvement is a critical, yet often ignored component of long-term wildlife conservation. The GGRO's mission is to inspire the preservation of California raptor populations. The GGRO was formed in the early 1980s to track the Golden Gate migration, an annual flight of tens of thousands of hawks, eagles falcons, and vultures - birds collectively called "raptors." The GGRO is a program of the Golden Gate National Parks Conservancy in cooperation with the National Park Service.