FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Tricolored Heron at South Holston

[Wallace Coffey <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Area Birders:
A Tricolored Heron was observed Saturday, 26 April, at South Holston Lake in
Sullivan County.  This is an accidental species for the five-county area of
Northeast Tennessee and  the third record.

It was seen by a party of observers participating in the Northeast Tennessee
spring bird county conducted by the Herndon Chapter of TOS at Elizabethton.

To the best of my knowledge, there are just four regional records and none
for Southwest Virginia. 

The adult bird was discovered about 7:20 p.m. in the Green Heron nesting
colony along Tenn. Rt. 44.  The area is the Painter Creek Embayment of the
reservoir near the Virginia border.

Wallace Coffey, Rack Cross and Don Holt found the bird while stopping to
count Green Herons at the rookery.  We first noticed what appeared to be a
heron well back in the trees and low to the water.  It appeared to be gray
and we thought it might be a Black-crowned Night-Heron.  We brought a
spotting scope to the roadside and looked down close to the road in the
willows where we could get a great look at the bird, its face and breast and
belly.  We were at close range.

As we started to leave the area, we watched it fly well out towards the main
channel near Painter Creek Marina.

A short while later, the bird was observed flying far across the lake from
Musick's Campground in the Tennessee portion of the reservoir.  It flew out
of sight and into a distant cove. It was not seen again.

It was not seen to fly in the Virginia portion of the reservoir.

Shirley Wayland saw this species 18 April 1991 at Austin Spring in
Washington County and Brian Cross, Glen Swofford, Frank Ward and others had
a bird 1-2 April 1988 at Elizabethton in Carter County.   Another regional
record, from outside the five-county area, was a bird along the Holston
River in Hawkins County, 1 May 1978, by Linda Duley.

Lets go birding....
Wallace Coffey
Bristol

 






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