BBC Snippets

Link: http://www.freelists.org/archives/bristol-birds/02-2008/msg00080.html

Nearly 30 years ago Bristol Bird Club birders got their first look at the now prominent waterfowl Mecca known as Middlebrook Lake in Bristol, TN. Most of those first visits included riding a jeep through the fields along the shore. It was inundated pasture land and there were no trees except along the ridge.

Just one house was in the subdivision we see today across from the wooded shoreline. The roads were in place for future development.

For nearly a decade, birders knew it simply as a big farm owned by Joseph Carmack, 2061 King College Rd. He lived in the two-story brick house now standing at that address. It was built by his grandfather in 1884. Carmack owned most of the land on both sides of the road. When modern day birders first birded in that area during the late 50's all roads from King College and beyond were dirt. His daughter lives there now but the farm was sold off. Middlebrook subdivision was carved from that holding.

Carmack was not friendly with young birders. He was always suspicious of the kids with binoculars looking over into his farm from along the road. He would often come out shouting for the birders to move on.

It was there on July 27, 1959 that Wallace Coffey got his lifer Barn Swallow despite the fact field notes report he had seen six or eight on the wire in front of Carmack's barn once before.

The lake was under construction in the late 1960's but birding began there just as soon as it filled with water. The narrow, winding channel of Sinking Creek, which ran at about elevation 1780 feet, came down from Virginia near the wooded ridge where most waterfowl hang out. Then it turned and flowed straight towards the spillway of the dam as we know it today. This is the deepest area of the lake and is right under the hilltop condos near the manholes which stand in the water at the shoreline.

Birders suffered a setback in the late 1970s when Middlebrook Dam finally gave way in a huge storm and a flood broke down the spillway, draining the lake. It was then that birders got a closer look at the topography of the impoundment. It was some time before the impoundment was again inundated.

Hooded Merganser began to winter there by 1987 with 67 birds and then increasing steadily for a decade until reaching 162 in 1993 and then soaring above 300 in the new millennium. The record of 308 was recorded on the 2004 Bristol CBC.

Bristol Virginia's Municipal Solid Waste Landfill began operating just across the stateline in 1986. It was established in an abandoned rock quarry only one-half mile northwest of Middlebrook Lake. Until the landfill began to accept trash, Bristol had few Ring-billed Gulls in winter. Most gulls were at South Holston Lake and Boone Lake. Only one time did the Bristol CBC have more than a hundred birds tallied on the count (150 in 1975) until 1990 when the count was 230. In 1992 it has tripped to 600 and a decade later the 2004 CBC hit 1,341. This year it was 840. Hundreds of gulls on Middlebrook on a given day in winter is nothing new.

It is easy to see a trend that closely parallels Hooded Mergansers. The lake is a safe haven for roosting and loafing when the gulls are not away for breakfast or lunch. It is easy to watch clouds of gulls either rise from the water and fly off to the northwest towards the landfill or come in by the hundreds returning from that direction.

Following the introduction of the giant Canada Goose into the region in the middle 1970s by TVA and the state wildlife agencies, the Bristol CBC had never totaled more than 33 birds on any winter count. Usually there were none. They began to surge in 1988. That year the total hit 101. By the year 2000 the all time peak of 882 was found on the count. The CBC count was 859 this year. Again, the build up of geese at Middlebrook and elsewhere is similar. The same could be said for Mallards which did not begin to establish themselves as a nesting population here until the 70's. The first summer birds ever were 8 pairs at Steele Creek Park with free flying birds capable of extended flight May 16 to Jul 21, 1970 (Brent Rowell). The first nest known in the region was June 23, 1979 downstream from the bridge below the South Holston Weir. It had 11 eggs with a female on the nest (Coffey).

Obviously, winter numbers of mergansers, mallards, geese and gulls at Middlebrook and Clear Creek have only served as live decoys for many other species. That accounts for the species richness and growing populations. Particularly at Middlebrook Lake.

In the fall of 1997 an Abingdon High School junior, Sarah Ellen Garrett, had shown up looking for a field research project. A biology teacher at neighboring Patrick Henry High School, Beverly Eason, knowing of Coffey's mentoring young people in field biology, sent her his way.

Garrett met with Coffey and Kevin Hamed, park naturalist at Steele Creek Park Nature Center and a plan was formulated:

A comparison of three small lakes in Sullivan County, Tennessee and Washington County, Virginia as habitat for waterbirds during the winter of 1997-1998. 95 pp.

She focused her research comparing Clear Creek Lake near Exit 7, Middlebrook Lake and Steele Creek Lake. Everyone wanted to know much more about the habitats and especially to know more about why there were no significant wintering waterfowl populations at Steele Creek Lake.

Garrett quickly took the birding community by a storm with her intensity, hard work and dedication to the project. She went to work on snowy roads and in snow flurries and finish the project with an amazing flare in April 1998.

Kevin Hamed was a loyal supporter of the project as he was for some 17 such research projects down thru the years. Since he left the nature center in August 2003, no one on staff at the nature center as been able to catch that updraft of energy. No significant research has been initiated by the park for nearly five years.

Always recognizing great youthful talent, Garrett was hired as a student naturalist at the park and continued to produce amazing research. Eventually she graduated with honors at Abingdon, earned a B.S. in biology at Va Tech and is finishing her Ph.D. at Wake Forest.

But she didn't leave until after she had produced another valuable and fascinating project at the park:

A Comprehensive Aquatic Fauna Survey of Three Creeks in Steele Creek Park, Bristol, Tennessee and Reintroduction of Native Species,1999, 164 pp.

In 1997-1998, the Bristol Bird Club quickly stepped forward to help fund the lake study project and play a major role in boosting this young biologist along her way. Garrett was loyal without fault to the BBC and regularly attending meetings and field trips.

On Friday evening, Sept 18, Ruth Beck, a longtime outstanding leader of the Virginia Society of Ornithology, arrived at Bristol to be the speaker for the BBC annual banquet. The biology faculty member from William & Mary College had already seen the amazing work of our gal Garrett. Beck rushed her with a recruiting pitch and we suddenly knew what had lured her here. Garrett soon added William & Mary to a list of small colleges from Massachusetts, to Chicago but also including Appalachian State and Virginia Tech.

Young people were encouraged not only to write their research something like a thesis but to publicly defend it. On the evening of April 30, 1998 administrators from the Washington County school system, college and high school students and faculty from all over the region came to the Steele Creek Nature Center for her seminar. Also came WCYB-TV5 with a camera crew and recorded the entire presentation front to end.

Afterwards a news reporter hit Garrett with many stand up Q&A. The BBC was as proud as peaches.


The results of her 22 weeks of winter research looked great. She was encouraged to present a paper before the VSO 1998 state meeting paper session at Mountain Lake. A Virginia Tech staff member with the College of Forestry and Wildlife Resources, who was putting together the session, balked. No! Not a high school junior's science paper. Finally it was agreed that she could have a poster along with others. No. BBC stood its ground and said this is a really neat piece of research. Give this gal a chance. No. Va Tech stood firm. Finally it was decided she would present her paper at VS0.

A large delegation of BBC birders were on hand when the paper session got underway just after 1 p.m. on May 16, 1998. She got sandwiched in between graduate students from Virginia Tech, a retired Ph.D. ornithologist, another student from Longwood College, two more from Virginia Tech and there were posters for others somewhere in another room.

The BBC was beaming like a beacon as they watched their prize present. She was cold under questions, direct and solid with answers. It was more than any from Bristol could have expected.

A group of what BBC was told were three college faculty people sat somewhat as a jury and two weeks later announced Sarah Ellen Garrett of Abingdon and the BBC and Steele Creek Park Nature Center was judge the best paper. It was announced in the VSO Newsletter. What a tremendous finish to this chilly winter project.

Virginia Tech now wanted Sarah Garrett and she arrived on campus and had a great experience.

In a nutshell her study did conclude that due to effects of human interaction, water quality, original stream channels, lake depth and the weather that winter, more waterfowl were determined to use both Middlebrook and Clear Creek rather than Steele Creek. That winter 25 species used Middlebrook, 14 were found at Clear Creek and 11 at Steele Creek. There were 14 species of waterbirds at Middlebrook which were not recorded at Steele Creek. Middlebrook had 11 species that did not show up at Clear Creek.

There were 8 diving duck species and 8 dabbling ducks species at Middlebrook. There were 428 divers surveyed and 1,194 dabblers.

Compared to Steele Creek, there were three diving species and three dabbling. There the total number of diving individuals turned out to be four with 908 dabblers. There were no exclusive species at Steele Creek Lake. The other lakes produced higher numbers of American Coots and Pied-billed Grebe than did Steele Creek.

Middlebrook had a pH of 8.9 and was better able to support forage fish populations. The others had higher pH. The original stream channel was believed to attract fish due to the abundant supply of nutrients which could support aquatic food staple. The stream channel provided both a "comfortable" area along the wooded ridge away from human interactions for the more wild species but also a food source.

Steele Creek Lake is shallow over much of the area nearest the main recreation area and there is lots of human disturbance along the shoreline. The gorge is deep, reaching down to nearly 30 feet.

Middlebrook is very shallow and a person might be able to walk the length without being over their heads in water except for the stream channel structure. However, it is of note that it is shallow and today has significant aquatic vegetation.

Clear Creek and Steele Creek froze four times during that winter study and Middlebrook just once.

from the archives of the Bristol Bird Club