Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch
Waynesboro, Virginia, USA
Daily Raptor Counts: Oct 28, 2018
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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 0 21 222
Bald Eagle 8 89 271
Northern Harrier 3 23 54
Sharp-shinned Hawk 72 1391 1978
Cooper's Hawk 6 249 367
Northern Goshawk 1 8 9
Red-shouldered Hawk 1 23 38
Broad-winged Hawk 0 1030 23587
Red-tailed Hawk 87 360 416
Rough-legged Hawk 0 0 0
Golden Eagle 0 8 14
American Kestrel 3 111 272
Merlin 0 23 74
Peregrine Falcon 0 16 53
Unknown Accipiter 0 11 16
Unknown Buteo 0 2 5
Unknown Falcon 0 1 7
Unknown Eagle 0 0 1
Unknown Raptor 2 19 37
Mississippi Kite 0 1 10
Total: 183 3386 27431
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Observation start time: 07:15:00
Observation end time: 15:00:00
Total observation time: 7.75 hours
Official Counter: Vic Laubach
Observers: William Leigh
Visitors:
Peter Clark
Weather:
Nice day with very strong W winds early diminishing to mild W winds after
1pm. 7.0-14.9C temps. Mostly cloudy varying between 50-95% cloud cover.
Clear visibility.
Raptor Observations:
A constant flow of raptors, usually appearing low over the ridge against
the winds, gaining height, then shooting south overhead or to the west. The
highlight was a nice immature Northern Goshawk that flew by overhead at
9:50am with quite a strong, steady glide against the winds. Six Bald
Eagles: 7:30 AD pair, 8:10 1YR, 9:35 4YR, 10:26 AD, 11:14 AD, 1:30 AD pair.
The first pair of Bald Eagles were flying in tandem against the strong
winds and were doing a lot of kiting as Red-tails do (holding motionless
against the wind for up to several minutes at a time).
Non-raptor Observations:
1 late Monarch, 1 late Chimney Swift, 4 Pine Siskin. Lots of Robins!
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Report submitted by Vic Laubach (laubach@xxxxxxxxxxxx)
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
