Crozet Wildlife's Journal

From the Rockfish Gap Hawkwatch Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/rockfishgap/)

RAPTORTHON 2019!

On April 27, 2019 the Rockfish Gap Hawkwatchers team (Vic Laubach, Gabriel Mapel, Baxter Beamer and Ezra Staengl) will conduct our 7th annual Raptorthon to raise funds to support our local Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch as well as HMANA’s work for raptor conservation, migration, and hawk watching in North America. This is our only fund-raising drive of the year. We’re hoping to beat our Raptorthon record of 122 total species! We hope that you can sponsor our team. It’s easy! You simply visit our Raptorthon page below and click on ‘Donate’. We'd greatly appreciate your help!

The Rockfish Gap Hawk Watch is located in Afton, VA along the Blue Ridge Mountains. A small group of volunteers cover the watch daily from mid-August through November; counting 25,100 migrating raptors each fall on average. Each of us are volunteer counters at Rockfish Gap, with Ezra being our youngest and newest counter at age 15. This will be Ezra’s first Raptorthon.

For our Raptorthon, we’ll be out from sunrise to sunset on an ambitious venture to all corners of Augusta County, VA. We’ll visit the Allegheny Mountains including Reddish Knob, the highest point at 4,400 ft, in search of crossbills, passerines, woodpeckers and raptors such as Golden Eagle, Bald Eagle, Northern Goshawk, Red-shouldered Hawk, and Broad-winged Hawk. In the Shenandoah Valley we’ll search for shorebirds and more passerines and raptors. We aim to end the day at sunset on the Blue Ridge Mountains in search of Woodcock and owls.

We’re hoping to beat our Raptorthon record of 122 total species! We hope that you can sponsor our team. It’s easy! You simply visit our Raptorthon page below and click on ‘Donate’. We'd greatly appreciate your help!

Wish us luck!
Vic, Gabriel, Baxter, and Ezra

For the second year, the Charlottesville/Albemarle area will participate in the City Nature Challenge (http://citynaturechallenge.org). This event is an international bioblitz and friendly competition between cities. On the last weekend in April, people all over the world will be finding and documenting wildlife in their cities and towns and posting observations using the iNaturalist app. The app will track which cities have the most observations during the bioblitz

This year, Crozet joins the international effort with a nature hike on Saturday, April 27. Participants will meet at 9 am at the Pavilions at Crozet Park and hike the Crozet Connector trail loop. This is about a two mile walk through fields and open woods along the trails that the Crozet Trails Crew maintains. The Nature Conservancy is sponsoring this hike; please email Margaret Hankerd (margaret.hankerd@tnc.org) if you think you might attend so that we will have a head count on participants. If you can't make the hike, be sure to get outside and log some observations during the weekend--they will count towards our area's total.

Additional events for this year's City Nature Challenge are listed below. Please email Margaret Hankerd (margaret.hankerd@tnc.org) if you would like to participate in any of these events as well!

o 4/26
Launch Party, Lewis and Clarke Exploratory Center: 5-6:30 p.m.
o 4/27
Birding Walk led by Jim Nix, Ivy Creek Natural Area: 7:30-9 a.m.
Nature Hike led by Sidney Huffman, Crozet Trail: 9-10:30 a.m.
Explore Saunders Monticello Trail: 9-noon
Benthic Monitoring with Rivanna Conservation Alliance, Greenbriar Park: 10-11:30 a.m.
o 4/28
Nature Hike led by Jane Fisher, Riverview Park: 11 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
Paddle and Clean-Up with Rivanna Conservation Alliance: 1-6 p.m.
Identification Party at Three Notch'd Brewery: 2-5 p.m.

.