Landmarks

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Looking to the north with good clouds in fall. Most hawks cannot be seen without
binoculars.  Some are specks even with binoculars. In the blue skies below, they are
very difficult to see.
 

The ridge just to the north is the direction we often face our chairs. We may be heard
calling out the positions of hawks we see as follows:
"It's flying low along the ridge." would mean within the black arrows.
"...over the pole, or passing the pole."
And "between the wires" or near the triple wires."
Generally, hawks we see in this frame move from east (rt) to west (lft).  They might also rise from a point along the ridge gaining lift in a thermal and fly off the top in a direction that brings them over our heads before they head west.

On the far right end of the ridge is the BROW.  Our compasses indicate that just off the brow is due north.  Many of the hawks come out of that segment of the sky, however, generally much higher in the sky.  But many Sharpies and Cooper's Hawks fly in low behind the ridge, then pop over the brow, often banking in the updrafts. They almost touch the tree-tops as they appear to bounce westward along the ridge front moving to the west.  Off to the right of this shot notice land mark #1, which is Cell One.

As I zoom back a bit, we are able to see our next landmark to the right from the brow, as we move out over the valley. It's a small pointed hillock, which we nick-named "Fred" in the early years, to make the landmark easier to ID.  On this day the horizon is somewhat free of haze, and we can see almost as far as what once was the Kingston Steam Plant.

 

We often use these landmarks to help other watchers get a general bearing on where to scan the skies above it; to find a bird we might be seeing at a distance.  We might say, "Scan 3 or 4 binocular widths up from the horizon over 'Fred'" - for instance.  In this way, no matter where you are standing on our bluff, you have an opportunity to find what others are viewing.

 

(I am not particularly good at this, however, because I tend to loose my hawk.)

 

It is possible to see hawks over Fred without binocs, but sometimes difficult yet to ID them.  Beyond that, binoculars are an absolute, and considering the size of the cell tower, you might begin to fathom the size of a hawk nearby. From this point I am posting pics clockwise along the East to South, to West and back to the NW where the Pole stands.

 

The next panel, moving right over the valley, has several new and more distant landmarks as well, some not always easily seen when there is haze.

To the right of Fred, (but skipping an area where there is a rise on which a second cell tower, "Cell 2" stands,) there is, in the left of this picture, a school hiding among the trees, which have now grown tall enough to almost obscure it.  To its right is a warehouse/factory building.   On the horizon directly above it, are the double stacks of Watt's Bar Nuclear Plant.  In a later picture,  I will eventually post that we can see the Sequoyah Plant as well. Jimmy often jests that we have the distinction of being the only Hawk Watch where one can see two nuclear plants at once, on a clear day.  Right and center of that is a break in the trees where we can see traffic moving along Hwy.27, N.  And lastly, on the extreme upper right of the picture is a sliver of water, which is near the direction of the Hiwassee Refuge.  Although small, this picture covers a large area of the North E. valley. It is from this general area and over the ridge, that we hope to first spot our migrants. But we don't always catch them out there. ( there is an error on this picture: it's Hwy 27N not 127.)

 

 

Looking out over the valley we may spot raptors flying over the treetops, or several binocular views above the horizon over a particular spot in the valley.   Glancing down to find a spot on the ground may lose your bird or birds, but a quick reference might allow you to get yourself and others back onto the bird(s).   In the picture above, there is a home on a hill now covered in scattered trees.  There once was a very visible S-shaped driveway from the green arrow going down hill.  We still call that landmark the S-shaped drive, even though it requires some explanation to visitors these days.

 

Coming down the valley (moving South along the East horizon) just past the S-shaped drive is the Crescent Field. (Below)

 

 

In the distance the Tennessee River shows it's path by causing

mists to rise between the ridges and mountains.

 

Next are the Texas Knobs, near Birchwood, TN. Some of the mountains behind them are

on the other side of the Tennessee River, including the ridge - including

White Oak Mountain near Ooltewah and further north.  Farther out, the Hiwassee River

flows toward the Tennessee River, coming in beyond our view in the NE.

 

 

This very wide view of due East shows the massive sky with good cloud cover, and in the extreme distance is Big Frog Mountain and others on the other side of the Ocoee River.  On a very clear day we can see a fourth ridge of very tall mountains.  Presumably of E. TN and NC.  Out over those ridges even a large kettle of BW's is difficult to see. We scan the clouds and valley for specks sometimes zipping through between us and the TN river.  But often large kettles that have moved along those ridges to our east, may make their westward turn. They come toward us in large numbers, sometimes  stretching out in anything from single birds coming past one after the other, to kettles of hundreds, seemingly falling from the blue.  For this reason we often turn to check directly over our heads to see if they are slipping in from great heights. The result is we haven't seen them in this broad sky until they are on top of us. We have discovered common paths from the east, often falling just beneath the sun shining brightly over our shoulders.  The sun makes it difficult to count them until they pass it, or begin to stretch out from their kettles into westward flying streams.

 

From Frog Mountain we begin to look toward the SE over SoddyDaisy.

 As you can see there aren't a lot of landmarks out there.

 

 

At this SE angle we are looking out over Soddy Lake,

 which you can't see through the trees from this vantage point.

Sequoyah Nuclear is also there, but for security reasons

 in this modern world, I am not showing it.

 

Many of these little pines have grown up, been cut down or died, and may block out the SE view.  From this angle, we are looking back along Hwy 111 toward the lake, and to the right, back toward Hixson. Hawks that pass swiftly to the South on this path, are often counted once out of view. Although, we cannot see them moving west, they must turn west in order to head out over Alabama toward Texas. Due to not having but one Hawk watch south of us, no one knows if large kettles continue to form along the Georgia/Alabama line far to the south, before heading west.  Since a large percentage of what we see turn westerly, we believe most head west sooner rather than later.

 

In the early days, we had a mascot Owl Decoy standing on a pole out of the pines.
Some Hawks, especially Merlins, will dive on an Owl, bringing them in for close views.
 One year the trees grew up around it, and we thought he was lost.... then the trees died and the wind blew the tops out.  So, Jimmy dug it out of the brush last year and we used it for one more year. He has since been retired.

 

 

At this point, we are looking almost due south. Most hawks we can see from this perspective are moving in a S-Westerly direction.  Many hawks get to this point and just over our heads in this direction, then reform kettles, due probably to the air rising over the ridge.  They will take the opportunity to get lift and sometimes get so high we can almost not see them, before they peel off the tops of the kettles going West or SW. We often turn from our Northerly view, or have one person scanning these southern skies, in order to catch birds slipping away behind us, if we don't stay vigilant.  More than once, we've had kettles forming in almost every area of this part of the sky.  Since they form and reform Kettles here, counting can be tricky unless you have enough people to have teams counting, and at least one individual watching to see which direction the kettles go.  It is important that we can see the birds aren't flying out of one kettle and into another which someone else is counting.  For this reason, we try not to count without making breaks in the numbers.  As each kettle clears, we call off the totals, thereby being able to verify numbers or recounts as we go.  On a big day, I may get at least one other person to help me do that, and I find the birds that are most often missed are the closest ones.  I sometimes watch as people intently count distant kettles of hundreds while from 10 to 50 will fly through just over our heads and clear the brush in the picture above with no one else ever seeing them.

More eyes can really help our numbers some days.

 

 
 Most Hawks are headed in this direction...and in skies this blue, we likely will never see them.

It is extremely difficult to give a landmark over the S to SW skies.
Over the tallest trees, is the one most easily recognized.  We might say,
 "Scan left of the tallest trees, or look up over that single tree standing above the others." 
 What else can you say?  To the left or right maybe?

Our last view of many hundreds of BW's has been in this space
 between the house and those taller trees. - As we approach the most westerly view.

In this direction there is a break in the ridge, and a gap where water has eaten back the dirt over centuries.  Burchard Rd. runs out toward this gap, and ends there.  It makes sense that the hawks find extra lift in this direction, before winging across the flat top of the plateau, crossing toward the Sequatchie Valley.

This might seem like a simple landmark, but the area over that house can hide a lot of hawks.  So we break it down into "over the right corner", or "over the Deck", "over the pointy part of the roof". Just a little off and your fellows may never get on your bird.  Singles fly into or through this space often with only one person able to spot them.  Even with clouds.  But over this house is a definite path.  It requires frequent scans.

To the right of the house, we try to count tall trees,  but you can't count them or reference whether you are counting from the left or right fast enough.  So it is wise to try and get others on your birds, in the Gap, or by the pole, or in the wires, and remember to say on which side of the pole.  One of our most often spoken landmarks is "above the pole."
In this space, between the house and the pole, below the bank, is the parking area for the hawk-watch.

 Even when claiming you have hawks, or a hawk, between the wires, you have to say "above the silver or below the double wires", or what ever narrows it down.  At one time we had the tallest trees numbered. T-1, T-2 etc.  I never could tell which side they were numbered from.  The little pines just behind the yellow flowers along the ridgeline, are now quite tall, but can be a reference that is more reliable.  Except it depends on which end of the chair line you are on. Above the small pines for one person, is near the pole for another.  The result is we sometimes find ourselves on different birds entirely, which can cause a bit of confusion, when, as a result, we are calling out different ID's.  We just have to stay on our birds.  And that is key. We often have to follow our birds to a point that not only identifies them in correlation to a landmark, but also identifies them unique to anything else in the sky. When we have a long day of counting singles, it can wear on us.  It sometimes pays to have one person just look at which direction everyone is looking.  Even then, everyone of 4 people can have 4 different individuals in their binoculars. and be confused about the calls or

 Id's of those around them.

( It is sometimes frustrating. You would think we would learn..LOL)

 

So that's the panorama.  Around the 4 quarters of the  watch, and you will be expected to remember it.  Of course, NO you won't. We are happy to situate  you when you come  --unless there are hundreds of hawks in the air, and then you might have to wait a bit on your lesson.  At least if you have muddled through this, you won't be entirely lost. See you there. Because, right where you will be sitting will be the most important landmark of all!