Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch
Waynesboro, Virginia, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Sep 10, 2020
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Species Day's Count Month Total Season Total
------------------ ----------- -------------- --------------
Black Vulture 0 0 0
Turkey Vulture 0 0 0
Osprey 1 62 129
Bald Eagle 0 41 107
Northern Harrier 0 2 8
Sharp-shinned Hawk 0 8 16
Cooper's Hawk 0 7 20
Northern Goshawk 0 0 0
Red-shouldered Hawk 0 1 9
Broad-winged Hawk 0 166 421
Red-tailed Hawk 0 35 83
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 0 0
American Kestrel 0 18 34
Merlin 1 1 3
Peregrine Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Accipiter 0 0 1
Unknown Buteo 0 2 2
Unknown Falcon 0 0 0
Unknown Eagle 0 0 0
Unknown Raptor 0 1 5
Mississippi Kite 0 2 3
Swainson's Hawk 0 0 1
Total: 2 346 842
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Observation start time: 15:15:00
Observation end time: 16:30:00
Total observation time: 1.25 hours
Official Counter: Gabriel Mapel
Observers:
Weather:
Dense fog and rain for most of the day, finally clearing out late in the
afternoon in time for a little bit of hawk watching. After the bad weather
cleared out, the sky was awesome with plenty of big, white puffy clouds.
Light N winds. 23C.
Raptor Observations:
It cleared out too late in the day for many raptors to fly through, but I
was able to squeeze out a couple. The Merlin was quite memorable - I first
spotted it fairly distant to the NNW, flying straight towards the gap fast
and low. It ended up flying right into the gap and flew LOW directly over
my head, dive bombed a Raven sitting on the roof of the Inn, and then
proceeded on to the south!
Non-raptor Observations:
The big surprise and highlight was an Olive-sided Flycatcher working the
snags all the way across the gap near "Rockpile #3". I was able to get
good views of the bird in my spotting scope for several minutes as it
perched atop the snags and caught insects. Other sightings included 1
Common Nighthawk, 45 Chimney Swifts, 6 Hummingbirds, and 8 Monarchs.
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Report submitted by Gabriel Mapel (birdmangabriel@xxxxxxxxx)
Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch information may be found at:
http://www.rockfishgaphawkwatch.org
More site information at hawkcount.org:
http://hawkcount.org/siteinfo.php?rsite=491
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