Blue Ridge Parkway, VA 9/18/2019

All photos are © Marshall Faintich

It was a strange morning for weather. I awoke to sunny skies a little before 7:00, and within an hour, Crozet was socked in with fog. But by the time I left for the Blue Ridge Parkway around 9:00, it was sunny again. As I approached the parkway, I could see that it was foggy there, so I continued on to Ridgeview Park in Waynesboro. The park was very quiet, and almost complete cloud cover made the wooded area fairly dark. So I headed back to the parkway as the fog was starting to clear, and went directly to the south end of the cirque (mm. 7.5). All I heard there was a Hooded Warbler and a Yellow-billed Cuckoo, but didn't see either bird. So I drove south to Hickory Springs Overlook (mm. 12) where i have been seeing Hooded Warblers every time I have been there this summer. There were no birds to be seen or heard there.

Well, this wasn't working very well, so I decided to go to the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch where they had 10,000+ Broad-winged Hawks yesterday afternoon (starting a few minutes after I left the hawk watch yesterday, of course). On the way there, I detoured onto parallel Route 610 at mm. 4, and about a mile or so down the road, I stopped when I saw William Leigh birding. There was a large mixed flock of migrating warblers there, along with at least one Scarlet Tanager and one Downy Woodpecker. The warblers were flitting around like crazy in the dense tree canopies, but I was able to photograph 10 warbler species in addition to the Hooded Warbler I had heard. There were even more warbler species there, as William saw a Magnolia that I didn't see, and there were prbably others that neither of us saw there.

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Female American Redstart

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Female American Redstart

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Black and White Warbler

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Black and White Warbler

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Black and White Warbler

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Bay-breasted Warbler

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Bay-breasted Warbler

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Bay-breasted Warbler

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Bay-breasted Warbler

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Blackpoll Warbler (note the yellow feet - my 39th New World warbler of 2019)

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Blackpoll Warbler

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Blackpoll Warbler

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Female Black-throated Blue Warbler

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Female Black-throated Blue Warbler

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Female Black-throated Blue Warbler

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Black-throated Blue Warbler (first fall female?)

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Canada Warbler

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Cape May Warbler

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Northern Parula

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Ovenbird

My 11th warbler of the day is probably a Nashville. William thought he saw a Nashville there, and my photo only shows its head and throat. At the left of the photo, there may be leaves, or possibly an undertail. If it is an undertail and not leaves, it looks like that of a Northern Parula. But Northern Parulas have a split eye-ring, and this bird has a complete eye ring. Its greenish head should rule out Canada Warbler.

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Nashville (?) Warbler

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Scarlet Tanager

I headed over to the hawk watch. They had already counted many, many Broad-winged Hawks. While I was there, I saw a few Bald Eagles, a Red-tailed Hawk, and some Broad-winged Hawks forming small kettles and then streaming out. Good eyes, good binoculars, and a spotting scope were necessary to see some of these raptors. I had none of the above, so I missed many of the raptors, and after I left, I suspect that many more hawks and other great birds flew close to the hawk watch!

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Kettle of Broad-winged Hawks

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Streaming Broad-winged Hawks


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