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Fall Bird Migration in West Virginia

One counted ridge carries West Virginia's fall raptor season: a Forest Service fire tower on Peters Mountain in Monroe County, watched from the middle of August into November.

Agency viewing sites
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Species documented
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Mapped
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Where to stand

Public viewing sites in West Virginia

Every place below is one an agency itself describes for watching the fall passage, with the agency named and linked, the species it documents there, the months it names as the peak, and the facility that exists: a tour route, a platform, a tower, a visitor centre. Where the agency wrote a sentence worth reading, it is quoted exactly.

Hanging Rock Raptor Observatory, Peters Mountain, Waiteville Public platformMarquee site

Forest Service fire tower on a wooded mountain top in Monroe County, on the Virginia line

Broad-winged hawkSharp-shinned hawk

The HawkCount profile describes a fire tower on top of Peters Mountain in Monroe County and notes that its closeness to the Allegheny Trail brings casual visitors all year, with the birding concentrated in the fall. Broad-winged hawks are the volume bird, averaging a few thousand a season with the best years past 5,000, and sharp-shinned hawks run in the hundreds. Waiteville is the nearest settlement and the tower is reached on foot.

“Its proximity to the Allegheny Trail allows for year-round casual visitors, but most of the birding activity takes place during the fall migration season which runs from the middle of August through November.”
HawkCount.org, Hanging Rock Tower site profile, quoted exactly.

Run by Fire tower on national forest land; count reported to HawkCount

The map

West Virginia sites, refuges and the reporting record

Style
Records
Layers

Viewing sites in West Virginia, with the national wildlife refuges in the state drawn underneath. The coloured grid is where people have uploaded a verified sandhill crane record to iNaturalist in September, October, November and December, brighter where more have been logged. It is a map of reports rather than of birds: it thickens around refuges, car parks and towns because that is where observers stand, and it shows past reports rather than birds present today. Pins are public viewing sites an agency itself describes; grey dots are US Fish and Wildlife Service refuges and hatcheries, drawn because the refuge system is where most of the staging happens.

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When

When the passage peaks in West Virginia

HawkCount.org, Hanging Rock Tower site profile puts the West Virginia peak at The Hanging Rock fall season runs from the middle of August through November, and the profile says most of the birding activity on the mountain happens during it. That describes a pattern across past autumns. The week itself swings with the weather: a cold front to the north moves cranes and geese south in a single night, and a warm spell holds them for weeks. Dawn and the last hour before dusk are when cranes and geese move between the fields and the water, and that movement is the spectacle the platforms are built for.

West Virginia has a single station reporting a fall season to the national count network, and it sits on Peters Mountain in Monroe County, right against the Virginia line, where the ridge that carries hawks through Virginia crosses into the state. WVDNR keeps its own list of bird watching areas, and two entries on it are about migrating raptors: Dolly Sods Recreation Area, which the agency ties to migrating raptors, high-elevation warblers and thrushes and a fall banding station, and East River Mountain Hawk Watch Area in Mercer County. Neither entry names one of the birds this page follows or gives a month, so neither becomes a listed site. Nothing read for the state ties a West Virginia location to a fall month and one of the geese, swans or cranes.

Below, one curve per species the agencies document in West Virginia: every research grade observation members of the public have uploaded to iNaturalist for the state, by calendar month across every year the platform holds, with September to December shaded. Counts of uploads, so they measure observers as well as birds, and the shape is worth reading where the absolute numbers are not.

Broad-winged hawk

133 research grade broad-winged hawks observations have been uploaded to iNaturalist for West Virginia across every year the platform holds, and 19 percent of them fall in the four shaded autumn months. The busiest month in the record is April. An autumn month carries about 0.46 times as many uploads as an average month outside autumn. People upload most of everything in July, so a bar that rises after that is the stronger signal. Counts of what people reported, measuring observers as well as birds. See the autumn records.

Sharp-shinned hawk

31 research grade sharp-shinned hawks observations have been uploaded to iNaturalist for West Virginia across every year the platform holds, and 45 percent of them fall in the four shaded autumn months. With fewer than 60 records the series is too thin to summarise, so the bars stand on their own. Counts of what people reported, measuring observers as well as birds. See the autumn records.

Sandhill cranes flying in a loose line across a pale open sky, necks held straight out in front and long legs trailing behind them
Sandhill cranes crossing a refuge on the morning flight. The movement is watched from the designated pullout or platform: the birds settle on shallow water for the night, and the roost itself is the one place a viewing site is never placed. “Sandhill cranes flying over Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge (24542820818)” by USFWS Midwest Region from United States, CC BY 2.0
Latest reports

What people have reported in West Virginia lately

The most recent research grade autumn observation of each species that anyone has uploaded to iNaturalist for West Virginia, as a date and the platform’s own coarse locality. Evidence that people do find broad-winged hawk and sharp-shinned hawk here. Each is one bird on one past day: the flocks move with the weather, so where they are this week is what the agency page and its counts answer.

Checking the most recent autumn uploads for West Virginia on iNaturalist...

Where West Virginia counts are published

Elsewhere

Other states with agency designated migration viewing

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Questions about West Virginia

Inventory compiled 2026-09-19 from the agency pages linked above. Agency text is quoted exactly with its source named and linked; the observation curves and latest reports are counts and dates from public uploads to iNaturalist.

Winter eagle watchingThe same refuges and rivers three months later, when the ice concentrates the eagles.West Virginia waterfowl seasonThe hunting calendar on the same marshes, worth knowing before standing on a dike in October.West Virginia daylight hoursThe dawn and dusk flights are the spectacle, and the clock change moves them.