FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] American Bittern, etc. (Greene Co., TN)

["Donald Miller" <pandion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

April 13, 2007

Greene County: Kinser Park (KP), Wal-Mart Distribution Center (WMDC), etc.

I adjusted my work schedule this morning to get in about four hours of birding 
time and much benefited from being in the field after spending most of the last 
several days inside.  Today was the first time that I had had a good 
opportunity to examine the damage done by the recent cold blast.  Throughout 
the morning, I kept having the sense that everything had been moved backward 
about three weeks.  The look of the foliage and the bird species composition 
together suggested a day in late March rather than one in mid-April.  It was 
unpleasantly weird.  I concur with the accumulating opinions that the result 
for birds is very bad and will likely get worse as the negative effects are 
magnified over time.  This weather event is bound to have a profoundly 
depressing effect on food supplies. 

Despite it all, I was nonetheless able to find a few notables, the highlights 
of which are--

Blue-winged Teal (37, mostly at WMDC)
Ring-necked Duck
Lesser Scaup (4)
Hooded Merganser (3 at KP)
American Bittern (at WMDC, second pond)
Black-crowned Night-Heron (at KP)
American Coot
Greater Yellowlegs (6--5 at WMDC, 1 at KP)
Solitary Sandpiper (3)
Spotted Sandpiper (on Baughard Hill Road)
Wilson's Snipe (18 at WMDC)
Purple Martin (5)
Tree Swallow (42)
Northern Rough-winged Swallow (14)
Barn Swallow (22)
House Wren
Ruby-crowned Kinglet (2)
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher (7)
Hermit Thrush (at KP)
Swamp Sparrow (6)


Don Miller
Greeneville, Greene Co., TN

pandion@xxxxxxxxxxxxx