Birding in East Tennessee

Feb 18-20, 2005

This weekend was quite a good one in East Tennessee for birdwatching, at least for me.

Friday

Friday afternoon I met up with Don Holt to visit some of his hot spots in western Washington County. On our way to Bowmantown, we spot a large group of small birds and stop to investigate. In a large, cow eaten field, we observed 300+ American Pipits.

After we reached Bowmantown we drove to Saylor Hill Rd where Ralph Keffer had located a roost of Northern Harriers. His high from the previous night had been 12 and I was hoping for at least half that. Getting there about an hour early, we decide to ride around the loop so I can get a good look at all angles of the property hosting the roost. We have Savannah Sparrow, Song Sparrow, Northern Mockingbird, 2 Red-tailed Hawks, and a few House Sparrows before deciding to get snack while waiting on the roost to come in. As we turned back on the main highway, Don spots the first 2 Northern Harriers. We make it to the store and back in time to still see the 2 Harriers in a tree growing in the center of the property. We get a good vantage point in time for the main show to begin. Soon more Harriers were flying over the field, some hunting and some interacting with each other. By the time that night fell over the field, we had the same high count as the night before - 12.

Saturday

Saturday, for me, started around noon. I met up with a lot of birders and so I don't leave anybody out, I will omit names in this report. You know if you were there.

I met up with a small group from the Elizabethton Club for lunch in Elizabethton before their early trip to upper Stoney Creek to the rehabilitator. Since I hadn't been birdng yet, I decided to pass on this phase of the trip (I am sure they had a great time) and I went to Little Wilbur Dam where there were the usual Bufflehead (number down to just over 100) and 4 Ring-necked Ducks. Up at the Watagua Dam over look was the wintering Yellow-bellied Sapsucker in its tree and a few Ring-billed Gulls flying over the water. Bluebirds were calling in the distance and the view was spectacular. I meander my way through the back roads over to Stoney Creek Rd with no significant bird sightings and drive on to Shady Valley to meet the rest of the group.

Before the set meeting time, the small group, whom I had met back up with, toured Shady Valley and had the following birds - Red-tailed Hawk and a small group of Rusty Blackbirds in Quarry Bog and a single Wood Duck on a small pond in the upper valley.

That evening the Bristol Bird Club and the Lee and Lois Herndon (Elizabethton) club had trips to Shady Valley to see if the American Woodcock was performing its display flight to attract females. A large group from both groups met at the crossroads in Shady Valley and headed over to Orchard Bog to finish the day birding and hopefully to see some displaying Woodcock. After we arrived at Orchard Bog, more and more birders kept showing. I would hazard a guess that there was 20-25 birders.

While we did have a Woodcock (I will get to that in a bit), there was a surprise guest that outshone the targeted bird. While we were waiting on dusk to settle over the valley and after seeing American Robins (500+ in a 5 minute continual stream over the bog), Red-winged Blackbirds (25 or so), Song Sparrows, and Rick Knight's sighting of an abnormally large number of Field Sparrows there was a familiar clacking sound ebbing from the swamps being redeveloped in the bog. After a number of clicks and clacks, everybody agreed we were hearing a VIRGINIA RAIL. After the excitement and the light died down for the evening we started hearing another familiar sound -- PEENT. We only heard it a couple of times and everybody started looking for flight activity. Seeing none, we headed back to where the barn sits near the road, but still had all eyes on the bog. Finally the ever prepared Don Holt, walked out the path with his strong light to see if he could find one. The darker (and colder) it got, the group started feeling of pang of not seeing a flight this evening. When out of nowhere, a strong light shown brightly from the swamp which immediately got everyone's attention. Quickly we picked out what we thought was going to be the Woodcock flying through the light but it turned out to be a Mourning Dove rousted out of its roost.

Sunday

Sunday turned out to be a short day because of rain. Tom McNeil, JT McNeil, Allen Trently (and Jane), and myself did some local birding in the Wilbur area. The same birds were seen as the day before except for the Yellow-bellied Sapsucker(Little Wilbur). In the surrounding back roads we saw White-crowned Sparrows, Northern Cardinals, Northern Mockingbird, Carolina Chickadees, Tufted Titmouses, Mourning Doves, and Song Sparrows. As the rain picked up we decided to call it a day. They dropped me off at my where I went to watch the Daytona 500 that I had been recording.

Long but very productive weekend birding in East Tennessee.