Rockfish Valley, VA 10/10/2019

All photos are © Marshall Faintich

I had a little time this morning for birding, and decided to try the Rockfish Valley Trail down in Nellysford, where I had been the birding activity manager for more than 5 years. The first two weeks of October used to be great there for migrating birds, but changes to trail and adjacent property habitat about 4 years ago really reduced to number and species of birds there. Although birding was better than when I was there a month ago, it still wasn't like it used to be. I logged 23 avian species, including possible Palm Warbler and Common Yellowthroat, but my views of these two species were so quick that I can't confirm them. Soon after getting onto the trail, two hawks flew from the ground where they were foraging. One, a juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk, flew directly away from me, but I saw it two more times on the trail this morning. The other hawk was a juvenile Cooper's, and it flew to a distant tree.

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Juvenile Red-shouldered Hawk