Bird Finding in Virginia: State Route 610

August 10, 2018August 12, 2018 / Ezra Staengl / 7 Comments

Tucked away in the mountains behind the Inn at Afton — also the Rockfish Gap Hawkwatch — lies a fantastic but little birded road for observing songbird migration. State Route 610 is a very quiet road, rarely used by cars that favor the nearby Blue Ridge Parkway. 610 starts as a turn off of 250 just west of where 250 is crossed by Skyline Drive. The road ranges in elevation from about 1,900 feet above sea level to just over 2,400. In my experience, the best section of the road for birding — reached after about three miles — is where it runs parallel and within easy sight of the Blue Ridge Parkway. Before that point it is more developed and lower elevation, and after the two roads diverge, 610 goes into a valley.

Last connection between 610 and the Blue Ridge Parkway. The section of road leading up to this is the best part of the road for migrants.

Be warned that the road spans two counties. The best portion of the road is in Augusta County, even though the eBird hotspot is in Nelson. I submit most of my eBird data from 610 from a personal location in Augusta instead of the hotspot in Nelson in an effort to be accurate about my county lists.

I first learned about State Route 610 by looking on eBird. I saw some of Edward Brinkley’s insane checklists from the 1990’s, containing huge fallouts of migrating songbirds. However, his data stopped before the turn of the century, and since then it had not been eBirded regularly. One morning last fall when I had nothing better to do I decided to check it out, and although it wasn’t spectacular, I had a good morning and made several repeat visits. On multiple occasions I was able to observe songbird fallouts of impressive proportions.

State Route 610

The first portion of State Route 610 immediately behind the Inn at Afton and in Nelson County can hold warbler flocks in migration, and I often give it a quick check to try to get whatever is possible in Nelson. At this point, the road is climbing up wooded slopes into the mountains. There are a fair amount of houses and clearings around them, and this is the point on the road where cars are most likely to be encountered. So far I have not observed any really notable birds here, but warblers I’ve seen here in the spring include hooded, ovenbird, magnolia, black-throated blue and cerulean.

Once I reach the section of road that runs along the Blue Ridge Parkway I usually get out of the car and walk, looking and listening for warbler flocks. I’ve had many species of warblers in the spring — which isn’t even the best season to bird this road — in the trees there, including Tennessee, blackburnian, bay-breasted and plentiful ceruleans. My brother and I also found a black-billed cuckoo there last June. I think the dense second growth scrub that fills the gap between the roads in places may be good habitat for the skulking warblers, like mourning and Connecticut.

Black-billed Cuckoo. Photo by Theo Staengl

In fall, 610 is a fantastic place to bird. I’ve been there when there were so many birds that everywhere I looked I could see warblers flitting in the foliage. In addition to warblers, it’s a great spot for large concentrations of Catharus thrushes. I’ve seen 20 warbler species there in just a couple fall visits. I think if the road were covered more regularly, people might be able to observe fallouts close to the size of the ones Brinkley reported over twenty years ago.

Bird Finding in Virginia: Rockfish Valley Trail

June 16, 2018June 17, 2018 / Ezra Staengl / 3 Comments

Note about this post: On past birding trips I have found bird finding guides extremely helpful. Written by people familiar with local hotspots, these books give the sort of tips and tricks for birding a location that can take many visits to figure out for oneself. Since there is no recently updated bird finding guide to Virginia, I have decided to make an online version through writing posts like this. I will try to publish a new one every week. Soon I will add a page on this blog with links to all the bird finding in Virginia posts that have been published so far. Some of my friends from the Blue Ridge Young Birders Club have agreed to help me on this project. Welcome Baxter Beamer, Tucker Beamer, Max Nootbaar, Ira Lianez and Drew Chaney to the birdsandbuds team! We will stick to our local area for now, as that is where we are most familiar with the birding locations, but I would like to make this a statewide project. If anyone reading this (especially in other parts of the state) would like to contribute articles like the one below, please send me an email.

Just past the town of Nellysford on the Rockfish Valley Highway (151), the Rockfish Valley Trail (RVT) is currently the most birded eBird hotspot in Nelson County. Although there are certainly other locations in Nelson waiting to be discovered by birders, the RVT will remain one of the classics. Driving 151 South, the Rockfish Valley Trail parking lot is on your right immediately after Horizon Village Road and the Bold Rock Cidery.

The Rockfish Valley Trail traverses cow pastures, overgrown fields and floodplain forests. Sections of the trail run along both the South Fork of the Rockfish River and Reid’s Creek.

Section of the Glenthorne Loop Trail.

From the parking lot, the Rockfish Valley Trail runs east and west along the South Fork of the Rockfish River. Although both sides are good, I find that the eastern side — known as the Glenthorne Loop Trail — is usually more productive, especially for sparrows in the fall. To get to the Glenthorne Loop Trail from the RVT parking lot, go under the bridge beneath 151. On the other side of the bridge you will see a large cow pasture to your right and a row of densely planted cedars to your left. Walk down the path between the cedars and the field, watching for eastern meadowlarks and grasshopper sparrows in the field. Once the cedars stop, the path splits off in two directions and crosses an extremely brushy field. During the spring and summer, the willows along the river here are a good place to see orchard orioles, eastern kingbirds and sometimes yellow warblers. In previous Octobers this field has been an amazing spot for sparrows, with large numbers of Lincoln’s and swamp present. I also had two marsh wrens here last October.

The trails eventually meet back up to form the beginning of Glenthorne Loop in front of Reid’s Creek, and from there you can either cross the creek on a bridge into another large field, or continue on the RVT side. This area, behind the brushy field, is a great place for fall warblers. I’ve had multiple blackburnian, blackpoll, bay-breasted and black-throated-green warblers in the early successional forests that border the path here. This is also a great area for olive-sided flycatcher in the fall, although the tree they used to perch on has fallen down. The trail goes back into the woods before coming out next to the cow pasture again, now following Reid’s Creek to the south, and I’ve never found it worth continuing at that point. Other than more grasshopper sparrows, meadowlarks, white-eyed vireos and the occasional warbler, there usually aren’t many new birds there, so I turn around and bird the west side.

If you don’t cross under 151 and instead follow the trail west from the parking lot, you’ll walk in between a large field and a small riparian corridor along the river. Extensive jewelweed patches grow next to the river here, and people often have mourning warblers in them during late August. As you walk this section of trail, scan exposed perches for flycatchers. Many species of Empidonax flycatchers can be found in the fall, including willow, least, yellow-bellied and probably alder. Olive-sided flycatchers are also annual. In the fall, watch for warbling and Philadelphia Vireos in the willows. The trail extends for about a mile before you have to turn around.

Philadelphia Vireo

Good birds seen at the Rockfish Valley Trail include: Olive-sided flycatcher, yellow-bellied flycatcher, least flycatcher, Trail’s flycatcher sp., northern waterthrush, mourning warbler, Connecticut warbler, blackburnian warbler, Wilson’s warbler, blue-winged warbler, black-billed cuckoo, warbling vireo, Philadelphia Vireo, gray-cheeked thrush, Lincoln’s sparrow, marsh wren, dickcissel and bobolink.

The Rockfish Valley Trail is a great place to bird any time of year, but especially in migration. In my opinion September and October are the best months to bird the RVT, as that is when most of the warblers, flycatchers and sparrows are coming through. I hope I’ve inspired you to come out to Nelson County to do some birding!

Birding Highland County

June 5, 2017June 5, 2017 / Ezra Staengl / 1 Comment

One of the first field trips I took with the Blue Ridge Young Birders Club was in January 2014 to Highland County, looking for Golden Eagles, Rough-legged Hawks, and American Tree Sparrows. Highland, a green, hilly county on the West Virginia border, contains a large wintering population of Golden Eagles. I remember feeling a little intimidated by the older boys, who were so skilled at bird ID and so patient and generous with helping me see the birds. My 7 year old brother was bored because he wasn’t that into birding yet, so he threw a snowball at the club’s Vice President. Andrew responded with good humor and soon everyone was involved in a memorable snowball fight that helped me and my brother feel even more welcome. We saw about 15 Bald Eagles that day. At the time, they excited me almost as much as the single immature Golden Eagle we saw having a vicious air battle with a Bald Eagle.

After having been to Highland for four winters in a row now, I desperately wanted to go in late May to see some of the breeding birds that are more common further north yet reach the southern limit of their range there. Last year, I waited until June to go, and most of Highland’s rare breeding birds like the beautiful Golden-winged Warbler and Black-billed Cuckoo had already stopped singing. This year, the date of the Blue Ridge Young Birders Club annual trip, May 21, finally worked for me. As we descended into the Blue Grass Valley, we started seeing Bobolinks and Meadowlarks by the road. This area of Highland is mostly endless farmland, so it can be a great place to look for field birds in the spring, and Golden Eagles in winter. We made a few brief stops at little streams that flowed out of the lush, rolling green hills. At one stop in the Forks of Water area, we found a Warbling Vireo, its boisterous, bubbly song intermingling with the sound of the swiftly flowing creek. Other stops in the valley included a graveyard for Willow Flycatcher and a large cattle pasture for Vespers Sparrow (which we didn’t get, but we did have good views of a Savannah and Grasshopper Sparrow).

As we began to climb up toward the West Virginia border and Margaret O’Bryan’s house (the location of one of the best breeding colonies of Golden-winged Warblers in Virginia) the vegetation became more brushy, with young trees and shrubs instead of pasture. I was most excited for this part of the trip, because Golden-winged Warblers were the only regularly occurring, eastern warbler that I hadn’t already seen.

Golden-winged Warblers are one of the rarest breeding warblers in Virginia. According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology, the Appalachian population has declined by 98 percent since the 1960s, to only 22,000 estimated breeding individuals in 2010, the steepest decline of any North American songbird. These declines are most likely the result of the loss and degradation of the shrubby, early successional breeding habitat that Golden-winged warblers favor, as well as loss of wintering habitat in the tropics. Another problem is that Golden-winged Warblers frequently interbreed with extremely closely related Blue-winged Warblers. Scientists worry that the much more abundant Blue-winged Warbler could be swamping Golden-winged genetics.

Despite the recent steep decline, I am hopeful that we may still have breeding golden wings in Virginia 50 years from now. For one thing, the Golden-winged Warbler Working Group and other conservation organizations have taken significant conservation actions, such as habitat restoration that could make a difference. Also, new research by the Cornell Lab shows that hybridization probably shouldn’t be considered a threat to Golden-winged Warblers because they have been interbreeding with Blue-winged Warblers for most of their evolutionary history. In this view, the species distinction may be artificial, and the two “species” sharing genes may have helped them survive and adapt to changing conditions.

We parked by the edge of the road just short of the O’Bryan property. As soon as everybody was out of the cars, as if on cue, the high, buzzy song of a Golden-winged Warbler came over the hill. We all scrambled across the road trying to spot it from the tops of the dense, green foliage it likes. As it sang again, Andrew (the same leader from that first Highland trip but soon off to college) spotted it in the top of a tree in the valley below. It was a gorgeous, pure Golden-winged adult male, the fulfillment of a birding dream for me.

Golden-winged Warbler (Vermivora chrysoptera)

Thrilled with such early success, we continued up the mountain and over the West Virginia border, where we saw our second Golden-winged Warbler. Two Golden-wings in two different states! The next part of the trip took us into the George Washington National Forest along the VA/WV border, looking for warblers like Canada, Magnolia, and Blackburnian, all of which we eventually heard. At one stop on a dirt road high in the mountains, I found American Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria pseudomajalis), a life plant for me.

American Lily-of-the-valley (Convallaria pseudomajalis)

We descended into the Straight Fork area, where a complex of beaver ponds, creeks and open mountain meadows crossed the road. This area is one of the best spots in Highland for Northern Odonates, which reach their southern range limit in Virginia and a very good site for Alder Flycatchers. It wasn’t long before we heard the distinctive “free beers” song of Alder Flycatchers echoing around the stream. Finding them wasn’t too difficult, but wasn’t that interesting, as they look almost exactly like Willow Flycatchers. Still, it was nice to properly experience this uncommon breeder that I have never seen before. The odes were not nearly as good as they could have been, possibly because of the cloudiness of the day, or maybe the time of year, with none of the really rare species and only some of the more interesting common northern ones present.

Our last stop was for Mourning Warblers at a fire road in the national forest. Last June, two of them had aggressively responded to imitated chips here, and I was excited to try and repeat that. We started walking down the fire road. Suddenly Andrew tensed and told us to be quiet, indicating he had seen something. He peered into the wall of greenery in front of us, and finally said he had a Black-billed Cuckoo. We rushed forward and demanded he tell us where it was, validating Andrew’s caution in waiting to announce the bird before he’d ID’d it. The Cuckoo, surprisingly tolerant, other than being in nearly impenetrable brush, let us get great looks and abysmal photos. I have been fortunate enough to see a Black-billed Cuckoo in Virginia before, on migration, but for some in our party this was a Virginia lifer. We never did see the Mourning Warblers, but what a great way to end a fantastic trip!