Every autumn, thousands of hawks, eagles, and falcons ride the wind currents above a ridge in eastern Pennsylvania. Birdwatchers still gather there today, continuing a count that began in 1934. According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal Ecology, this ridge holds the oldest and most complete continuous record of raptor migration anywhere in the world. That record exists because a wealthy New York socialite refused to look away from a photograph of dead hawks.
Her name was Rosalie Edge, and her story reads like something out of a movie.
