Hello, After two weather delays we had a great day in Highland County today
with four members of the Rockingham County Bird Club. We had to detour off of
250 at West Augusta because of a traffic crash. We saw 14 Wild Turkeys and a
Red-Shouldered Hawk on the detour route. At the rest stop at the top of the
first mountain it was foggy and ice on the trees. At the bird feeders in
McDowell there was only a W.B. Nuthatch. We traveled on Doe Hill Road for a
couple of miles and found a flock of 11 Ringed-Billed Gulls. When we got back
on 250 and headed towards Monterey we spotted three big birds on the right hand
side of the road, they were immature B. Eagles and while looking at them an
Immature G. Eagle flew in and landed. At the trout ponds north of Monterey, we
had a mature B. Eagle. The east side of Snowy Mountain was foggy and we didn't
see anything. On the way up the west side of Snowy Mountain, we had two perched
G. Eagles and one flying. When we got to the top another flew in from a
different direction. We also saw two flocks of unidentified flying birds that
made us think more ring-billed gulls going by size and flight pattern. We had a
total of 35 species for the day. The count was 6 G. Eagles and 5 B. Eagles. One
of the B. Eagles looked like it had a snake in it's claws. Mike
Shank
