Birding in East Tennessee

BMS Wetland - yes, that stands for Bristol Motor Speedway, but it is not located in Bristol.

It's in Johnson City.

In Johnson City, there is a tract of land that has been a wetland for years.  This property was once owned by a construction company that was hired to do some work at BMS.  BMS purchased this land from the construction company with mitigation plans in their sights.

When BMS did load of renovating at their site in Bristol, they filled in and built over bits and pieces of wetland areas.  This destroyed wetland needed to be mitigated somewhere else.  Tennessee law says that when you destroy any wetland area you have to replace it by a ratio of 4 (I believe it is 4:1 - I need to check this fact more but I know it is at least 3:1 but I think they have recently upped that number).  So with the help of TDEC (Tennessee Department of Environmental Control) a deal has been worked out for the City of Johnson City to assume ownership and managerial duties for this wetland. 

One problem with this plan is that for years the local community has used this property for their recreational purposes.  There are many motorcycle and 4-wheeler trails through the property.  I was even told a story about a group taking their old car in there and when they got it stuck, they just flipped it over and left it.  Sometime later, someone from the road noticed a car on it's top and called the police.  They came to investigate, thinking a possible accident.  The neighbors told them the story and that the car had been there for many months.  But the problem was how to keep people off the now city property.  They are trying to solve the problem by putting up a fence around all the main entrances to the property.  A gate with locks will be added as well. 

While surveying this property, I felt like this 5+ acre wetland might have birding potential especially when the fence is erected allowing birds to feel safe and protected. 

I did a preliminary scouting trip to the wetland on 3/6/07 between 4pm and 5pm.  This is not the best  time to be there.  The best times are just after dawn or just before and a bit after sunset (at least for calling rails).  The birds I picked up were Red-winged Blackbird (few look to be nesting), Swamp Sparrow (1) - this species will need to be watched as range maps show it nesting just north of here, Common Crow (flyover), Turkey Vulture (flyover), and Song Sparrow (3+). 

I am anticipating more species to show up during and after migration (nesting) and hoping for a few good species DURING migration.