HAWKAHOLICS of PHILADELPHIA

When Carolyn Sutton first heard about the Red-tailed Hawks nesting on a window ledge of a Philadelphia science museum back in 2009, she wasn’t really a birdwatcher. But after a peek at the Franklin Institute’s webcam, she said, “I became immediately addicted.”

More than 10 years later, Sutton, who never had much interest in social media before, is leading online chats and tweetstorms and is one of 2,600 members worldwide of the Franklin Hawkaholics Facebook page, all devoted to the Red-tail family. She has also spent nearly every early morning for the past decade observing the generations of birds that began on the museum windowsill.

Hosanna DeForrest, a poet and photographer who suffered a stroke 18 years ago and uses a cane to support a weak leg, was taking her daily exercise — walking across the bridge from her West Philadelphia home to the city’s museum district — in 2015 when she met Sutton and learned about the neighborhood hawks.

Since then, DeForrest has been a frequent companion of Sutton’s, even on sunrise vigils and murky, muddy trudges to spot hawks in the city’s vast Fairmount Park. “I found