House Finch
I met up with Walt Childs at the Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch, and we drove to Hillandale Park to look for warblers. A variety of warbler species had been reported there over the past few days, including a Connecticut Warbler. We spent three hours there, and ended up with about 30 avian species, including 9 warbler species.
House Finch
Yellow-billed Cuckoo
Red-bellied Woodpecker
Downy Woodpecker
Carolina Chickadee
Brown Thrasher
Sub-adult (Basic I) Bald Eagle
Of course, the warblers were the main prize. I photographed 8 warbler species: American Redstart, Bay-breasted, Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Magnolia, Nashville, Northern Parula, and Tennessee. Walt saw a female Black-throated Blue Warbler while I was photographing other warbler species. I looked a couple of times where the Connecticut Warbler had been reported. On my second look, I saw a warbler-sized bird with some yellow on it that was walking on the ground in some dense brush, but didn't see it long enough to report it as the Connecticut. Magnolia Warblers seemed to be everywhere we looked.
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Magnolia Warbler
Northern Parula
Northern Parula
Northern Parula
Northern Parula
Northern Parula
American Redstart
Bay-breasted Warbler
Bay-breasted Warbler
Black-throated Green Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Chestnut-sided Warbler
Nashville Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
Tennessee Warbler
We returned to Rockfish Gap, with plans to look for warblers along the start of the parkway, and spend some time at the hawk watch. Walt asked what order I wanted to do this, and I choose incorrectly by picking the parkway first. We drove along the first 8 miles of the parkway, and only saw one warbler.
Bay-breasted Warbler
When we got to the hawk watch, we learned that we had just missed a Mississippi Kite, and three low flying Sandhill Cranes, but we still saw some good raptors there.
Osprey
Bald Eagle
Sharp-shinned Hawk
Peregrine Falcon
Broad-winged Hawk kettle
Streaming Broad-winged Hawks
Merlin
Merlin
And we saw a young bear crossing Skyline Drive on the other side of I-64.
Bear