Birding in East Tennessee

I have decided to only do 4 Christmas Counts this year.

The Elizabethton CBC and the Roan Mountain CBC are over and they were good. We had some average numbers for winter birds in this area with a few good species as well.

Tom McNeil and myself had a Catbird (which is a great sighting for December in East Tennessee) along the Linear River Park trail in Elizabethton. This is the second year (maybe 3rd) in a row that the count has found them in December. This bird usually moves south to along the coastal areas of the Gulf Coast and the Atlantic Coast. Also they go down into Florida and points farther south.

Also, another party had a Horned Lark which is rare for the Elizabethton CBC as the habitat doesn't seem quite as habitable in Carter County as is does in western Washington County. It does seem that this species should appear more though in this count.

The Roan Mountain Count was average enough with Rick Knight's party getting the high elevation specialties such as the Red-breasted Nuthatches and the Pine Siskins. I was with leader Tom McNeil and Bill Grigsby at the Ripshin Lake area where we had a pretty good day with a Wood Duck, Buffleheads, and Black Ducks on the lake; Red-breasted Nuthatches, Fox Sparrow, and the other usual sparrows along the road by Ripshin Lake. Also, we had a Pied-billed Grebe on Miller Lake (a smaller lake just down from Ripshin). We also had 5 Ravens over the graveyard where we started the day before light owling where we could only get a Screech Owl. The rest of the species that day were pretty average which made it another nice average day with a few major misses.

Turkey Vultures and Black Vultures were the two big misses for both count areas I went on. Also, Killdeer was another miss that I usually see every day while out (at least hear!).

Still - two pretty good days and two more to go over New Year's Holiday.