BBC Snippets

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/03-2008/msg00071.html

Twenty- one members of the BBC were on hand for the club’s April 8, 1995 field trip to the Holston Army Ammunition Plant in Hawkins County at Kingsport and it was a "five-star" day for great birding.

Bill Little and Greg Lee were the "insiders" at the plant who made the arrangements.

It was the first time birders had been allowed in the facility on an outing to see the Double-crested Cormorant and Great Blue Heron rookery which was discovered in 1991-1992 by Ron Caldwell and John Copeland,biologists at Lincoln Memorial University's Cumberland Mountain Research Center.

Little, who worked at the plant and was a BBC member, had been keeping records in the spring of 1995 and had permission from the commander of the facility to photograph the nests. He made arrangements for BBC to tour the site. But we had to submit our Social Security numbers for what we were told was security purposes.

Birders were met at the gate and loaded into two vans and driven to the area where we were allowed to spend almost four hours birding and photographing the nests. We tallied 48 species during our visit

The area contained an estimated 57 Great Blue Heron nests and we found five Double-crested Cormorants sitting on nests.

Only four Tennessee counties had historical breeding cormorants and the rookery, at Kingsport in 1992 represented the first documented observation of nesting Double-crested Cormorants in Tennessee since 1955.

We estimated 30 cormorants about the rookery while we were there. It was believed to be the first such rookery known in the Holston River watershed.

The rookery stood on Clay Island in the Holston River. It was completely within the 4,000+ acre plant area and there was no access by boat or foot.

The Double-crested Cormorant was found there by Caldwell and Copeland, April 17, 1992, when five individuals were on the river during breeding season.

On May 14, 1992, the biologists observed an individual carrying nest material in its beak. Two cormorant nests, each with two nestlings, were observed June 22, 1992 on Clay Islands. These nests were found within a nesting colony of Great Blue Herons.

The Great Blue Herons, were sighted on every field trip the researchers made. A rookery consisting of several nests was found on Clay Islands. The colony had nested on the islands in previous years as old nests were observed in January 1991, according to Caldwell and Copeland in an article they published in the state journal of ornithology.

They also wrote that on June 23, 1992, an Osprey nest was found just off the ammunition plant property on Long Island. The nest was situated atop a powerline pylon. No nesting activity was observed but they did see Osprey present several times.

The rookery has moved slightly up the river in recent years since a pair of Bald Eagles started nesting there a few years ago.

PARTICIPANTS FOR THIS HISTORIC BBC FIELD TRIP WERE: Lloyd Jones, John Shumate, Jr., Lorrie Shumate, Carolyn Coffey, Suzanne Clark, Allen Clark, Judy Roach, Bill Little, Priscilla Little, Judy Musick, Louise Tilson, Greg Lee, Karen Quesenberry, Wallace Coffey, Mary Spivey, Rick Knight, Richard Lewis, Phillip Lewis, Judy Tomlinson, Carol Lynn and Karen Musick.

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club