Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch
Waynesboro, Virginia, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 04, 2008
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Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
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Black Vulture 0 0 0
Turkey Vulture 0 0 0
Osprey 1 10 130
Bald Eagle 1 2 33
Northern Harrier 2 4 23
Sharp-shinned Hawk 13 118 442
Cooper's Hawk 1 14 69
Northern Goshawk 0 0 1
Red-shouldered Hawk 0 0 1
Broad-winged Hawk 3 3 14432
Red-tailed Hawk 4 6 29
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 0 1
American Kestrel 0 12 81
Merlin 0 1 4
Peregrine Falcon 2 5 15
Unknown Accipiter 0 1 1
Unknown Buteo 0 0 2
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 0 6
Mississippi Kite 0 0 1
Total: 27 176 15271
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Observation start time: 08:00:00
Observation end time: 14:00:00
Total observation time: 6 hours
Official Counter: Brenda Tekin
Observers: Dave Hunter, Pat Alther, Vic Laubach
Visitors:
A few visiters passed through today but most of the day was manned by
counters Vic Laubach, Brenda Tekin, Pat Alther, and Dave Hunter.
Weather:
A beautiful day to be outdoors although a bit chilly in the shade. By
afternoon counters had migrated to sun enriched upper deck.
A slight westerly breeze the first hour, a 2 on the Beauford wind scale
that shifted to a SE to Easterly flow and back and forth for remainder of
day, diminishing to a 1. Bright blue sky persisted throughout the morning
and at one point counter suffered a "blue out" and for several seconds
could not locate a low, approaching adult Bald Eagle. By afternoon a few
white puffs passed over.
Temp: 14c increasing to 22c;
Humidity: 57% dropping to 50%;
Bar.Pressure: holding steady at 1018;
Crystal clear skies with visibility for 40+km;
Raptor Observations:
The first hour held such promise but it all too soon became painfully clear
this was not a day for migrating raptors.
In the first hour, the five birds consisted of one Osprey, an adult male
Northern Harrier, two Sharp-shins and a low and slow sailing Peregrine. The
top hour of the day followed (9-10) with 8 migrating raptors. Between 12
p.m. to 2 p.m. EST, only three.
Peregrine #1, an immature, came through at 8:27 a.m. and 2nd Peregrine
for the day, an adult, came through at 9:48; The adult Bald Eagle flew past
at 11:26 a.m.
Non-raptor Observations:
An interesting diversity of wildlife today that included:
Belted Kingfisher, Great Blue Heron, Northern Parula, Black-throated Blue
Warbler, Palm Warbler, American Tree Swallow (7), a group of 5 Chimney
Swift, Eastern Phoebe, loads of Blue Jay and Northern Flicker, and an
Eastern Phoebe.
A 4-pt. White-tailed Deer with 2-3 does were observed on north ridge
around the teepee. A short while later, a Black Bear came through and
disappeared in grove of trees and thickets. Within a few short seconds,
two does ran out, apparently disturbed by the bear.
A few Monarch Butterfly were noted but not officially counted; Mourning
Cloak
A first for the hawk watch, a flight of approximately 40-50 mylar
balloons, each dangling a long ribbon, slowly drifted up over the gap from
the east. Most caught an upper level wind out of the north and a few
remained low, heading NW toward the town of Waynesboro.
Predictions:
sunny and hopefully a few clouds and PLEASE, more birds!
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Report submitted by Brenda Tekin (bt8x@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch, VA information may be found at:
http://home.ntelos.net/~btkin/rockfish_gap_hawk_watch
