A History of Hawk Watching at Mahogany Rock

When John Anthony Alderman, master of the autumn skies (1927-2000), started a hawk watch in 1986 at Mahogany Rock Overlook on the Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 235, there was no full-season reporting of data on hawk migration to the Hawk Migration Association of North America from along the Blue Ridge as far south as North Carolina. A few birders, like Ramona Snavely at Pilot Mountain and Leslie Hines at a few places on the Parkway, were watching for hawk migration but most were not reporting data to HMANA much beyond the September rush.

From 1980 to 1986 at nearby Air Bellows Fire Tower on Green Mountain at Blue Ridge Parkway Milepost 237, Jim Keighton, a Hawk-Mountain-infected transplant to North Carolina, had sporadically observed large streams of Broad-winged Hawks, among a diversity of other raptors in September watches. He submitted the famed “green sheets” data to the Hawk Migration Association of North America and these reports inspired John Alderman to start a formal hawk watch at the more accessible nearby Mahogany Rock Overlook on the Parkway. Now a full season of hawk migration could be reported from the Carolina Blue Ridge and dozens of raptor enthusiasts could congregate every fall on the large expanse of grass, with plenty of parking space, to survey a near-360º panorama.

At the fire tower on Green Mountain, Jim Keighton - and his middle school students – had observed 316 hawks in 28 counting hours in 1981; 55 in 15 hours in 1982; 477 hawks in 18 hours in 1983; 1552 in 19 hours in 1985 and 29 hawks in 6 hours in 1986. So, it was not surprising that John Alderman with his beginning team of Jim Lasley, Hartsell Cash, and John Irvine tallied 1244 migrant raptors in 85 hours in 1986 and 5410 in 181 hours in 1987. And as a perennial hawk-watching team crystallized around such dedicated hawk watchers as Joan Roan and Dan Brooks, James Coman, Jr. and Billie Coman, James Coman III, Bill Reavis, Hal Walker, and Kenn Berzinis; and the length of the watch season grew, so did some surprising counts for this far south: totals for the year of 9,429 in 1993 and 17,857 in 1994.

That 1994 eighteen-thousand bird season made Mahogany Rock momentarily the premier hawk watch site in the east. While most other ridge hawk watches to the north languished throughout the Broad-wing Hawk season as the broad-wings apparently “kettled” in the piedmont and coastal plain until they reached the Carolina Blue Ridge, Mahogany Rock witnessed the return of thousands of Broad-winged Hawks within just a few days, including over eight thousand in one day and making 15,108 broad-wings for the season. On that eight-thousand-bird day watchers were challenged to count thousand-bird tornadoes of broad-wings and many simultaneous additional kettles around the horizon, such that observers were assigned to count separate quarters of Mahogany Rock’s 360º view to avoid missing any of the wave.

John Alderman wanted every Parkway traveler to appreciate the natural assets available to them, from the dramatic migration of hawks and other birds to the seasonal change in wildflowers. He promoted the hawks by sharing his enthusiasm for these amazing manipulators of the air with Parkway visitors and he began photographing and writing a guide to the Wildflowers of the Blue Ridge Parkway. To give himself a chance at meeting publication deadlines he turned over the compilation of data in 1997 to Jim Keighton who now lived within sight of the watch post.

After John published Wildflowers, he turned to working on a guide to Parkway trees. A newly formed bird club, Blue Ridge Birders, representing several counties in northwestern North Carolina and southwestern Virginia took over responsibility for the Mahogany Rock Hawk Watch. John continued to support the watch with his skills and enthusiasm whenever he was near the watch in the fall, as he roamed the Parkway for wildflower and tree photos. But in the year 2000 the organizer and coordinator of the Mahogany Rock Hawk Watch and recipient of the Golden Eagle award from the National Audubon Society suddenly passed away, leaving a real emptiness in the autumn skies at Mahogany Rock. His raptor education legacy on the Parkway goes on, however, with the publication of the John Anthony Alderman Guide to Hawk Watching at Mahogany Rock, a brochure available to every hawk watch visitor along with postings on a portable display at Mahogany Rock during the hawk watch season. These written and visual aids help all appreciate the drama unfolding in the sky above them.

After 22 years Mahogany Rock continues to reflect some of the trends seen at other watches in the south, but also demonstrates some differences. It is very satisfying to see greater numbers of spectacular birds like Osprey, Bald Eagles, and Peregrines. But it is sad to experience the longtime drop in numbers of Northern Harriers and Sharp-shinned Hawks. And then there are the questions raised by the precipitous decrease in Red-tailed Hawk migrants at Mahogany Rock, while resident redtails are plentiful and the nearby winter flatland populations seem almost overwhelming if judged by abundance on interstates and in urban/suburban backyards. When these magnificent birds once rode close down the ridge sometimes every ten minutes, they are most often today found mostly passing far out over the valley to the north.

Mahogany Rock still has some of its early observers, like Bill Reavis, James Coman III, and Hal Walker helping to count, at least occasionally while joining Blue Ridge Birders like Harrol and Velma Blevins, Gary Felts, Bill Dunson, Ann and Chester Robertson, and Scott Jackson-Ricketts. And the small Mahogany Rock team is gaining new full-season support in recent years from dedicated full-time enthusiasts like Peter Zwadyk. This concerted effort of multiple observers each day well into the late migrant season should help Mahogany Rock catch far more of its late season travelers and honor the founder of the Mahogany Rock feast of flight, John Alderman, as this site nears 25 years of scanning the skies.   JK