Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch
Waynesboro, Virginia, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 22, 2010
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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 6 116 136
Bald Eagle 0 63 76
Northern Harrier 1 21 23
Sharp-shinned Hawk 15 330 346
Cooper's Hawk 1 36 40
Northern Goshawk 0 0 0
Red-shouldered Hawk 0 2 2
Broad-winged Hawk 6264 24357 24409
Red-tailed Hawk 0 34 43
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 1 1
American Kestrel 0 93 98
Merlin 0 2 2
Peregrine Falcon 0 6 6
Unknown Accipiter 0 1 2
Unknown Buteo 0 4 4
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 6 9
Total: 6287 25072 25197
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Observation start time: 08:00:00
Observation end time: 16:00:00
Total observation time: 8 hours
Official Counter: Multiple Counters
Observers: Dave Hunter, Gordy Adamski, Vic Laubach
Visitors:
Lots of visitors. Kim Bolyard, a professor in the Dept. of Biology at
Bridgewater College, brought her Ecology class of 13 students to the hawk
watch today. I don't think any of these students ever saw a Broad-Winged
Hawk, let alone thousands of them migrating overhead! If only they knew how
lucky they were today! Other visitors included: Robert Plank, Dan
Perkuchin, Gerry Weinberger, Bill Tucker, JC Stoorvogel and a group from
Holland, Frits & Pat Wyberger from Rockville, MD, Gordon & Irene Ritzerna
from Silver Spring, MD, Buz Van Santoord from Orange County.
Weather:
Very warm (temp. 21.5-28C) with light breezes generally from the south.
Clear blue skies in the morning, partly cloudy from 12-3pm, becoming
overcast with thunderstorms pushing in from the southwest at 3pm. VERY hazy
all day!
Raptor Observations:
Just when you think things are winding down - Kabang! We had another huge
wave of BW Hawks fly over today! The hourly count: 48 (8-9am), 564
(9-10am), 300 (10-11am), 66 (11am-12), 713 (12-1pm), 680 (1-2pm), 3893
(2-3pm), 0 (3-4pm). The early birds were rising to the west over
Waynesboro, then they shifted to flying fairly low and overhead from the
north. By 1pm most of the birds were flying EXTREMELY high, and many could
only be seen when passing in front of high clouds. Often, careful scanning
of the hazy sky would eventually lead to a chance sighting of a distant
bird which then quickly becomes 10, 50, 200 or more birds! The afternoon
birds were rising high to the NE (over Bear Den towers) and tracking
southward on the east side of the mountain. As the thunderstorms approached
from the southeast, we watched as the massive BW flights shifted further
east to avoid the storms. The biggest flight before the storms (2-3pm)
finally disappeared out of view into the distant haze to the east, and thus
many more birds likely went uncounted. The afternoon birds often formed
large, distant kettles before proceeding to stream across high in the sky
as a "river of birds"!
The only bird observed in the final hour, as it was lightly raining and
dark overhead, was a lone Sharp-Shinned Hawk. An adult female Norther
Harrier flew by at 10:05am.
Non-raptor Observations:
Predictions:
Mostly sunny, high 92F, SW breezes.
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Report submitted by Vic Laubach (laubach@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch, VA information may be found at:
http://www.rockfishgaphawkwatch.org
