I went up on the mountain tonight to see what I could see, and ended up at a
Skyline Drive overlook about 10 miles north of the I-64 interchange at Afton.
I arrived there about 5:30 on a clear evening and, over the next half-hour or
so, I "collected" some so-called "usuals:" E. Towhees, Goldfinches, Titmice,
Carolina Chickadees, Downy, Red-Bellied and Pileated Woodpeckers and the croak
of a distant Raven.
Suddenly, overhead the sky was filled with a dozen Nighthawks, dipping and
diving and working their way from the northwest towards the southeast. After
the last one had cleared my airspace I checked my watch: 6:04. A moment later,
more 'hawks: another 13 of them silently and gracefully followed... but less
than 10 minutes later the sky was filled with Nighthawks circling and swooping
back to the northwest. This continued for a while; I surmise that, overall,
there were in excess of two dozen birds involved and I observed the last one at
7:42 as the light was fading.
By then some Barred Owls were chortling and whooping from down the western
slope and suddenly I became aware of motion in the grasses behind the retaining
wall about four feet from me. In the ever-dimming light I realized that there
were two copperheads wrapped around each other, bobbing and weaving and raising
their twisted bodies vertically about 15" in the air. They would sway and
weave and then whip downward before rising again in the space between two rocks
of the wall. I tried to get closer for a better look - they certainly weren't
interested in me - but they eventually carried their carrying on back away from
the wall and into the grasses and out of sight although the grasses continued
to twitch and sway marking their location. I chose not to pursue in the dark
of the evening.
And then, at 8:01. the Whippoorwills started up from down that same western
slope. Feeling extremely fortunate to have been so entertained, I called it a
day... and an evening.
David I. White Jr. | 505 Park Plaza, Charlottesville VA | H: 434-296-4272 | C:
434-466-3636 | dizoo@xxxxxxxxxxx
