FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Elizabethton night-heron news

[dnldhlt@xxxxxxx]

Sunday, 03 JULY 2005
Elizabethton, Carter County, TN
D. Holt
 
Sunday afternoon around 7 pm, following a tip from a fisherman, I saw a 
Black-crowned Night-Heron on the Watauga River, between Sycamore Shoals and The 
Bent.  I have had reports of this or similar birds in this area for the last 
year, but this is only the second I have seen there myself, and the first this 
year.
 
Earlier Sunday I discovered a new Yellow-crowned Night-Heron nest in the colony 
on Sycamore Shoals Rd. near Blackbottom Shoals.  That would make a new total of 
five nests known at that site. The new nest at Blackbottom Shoals is still 
small and flimsy.  I could easily see an adult on the nest from below by 
looking through the nest, but saw no sign of young.  The nest was located in a 
spot that would have been hard for me to miss on my previous visits, so I 
believe it was constructed after June 17.  Another nest at another site, the 
one known from last year at Sycamore Shoals State Historic Area, was predated 
around a month ago and one of the adult pair apparently killed and the nest now 
abandoned.  I am wondering if the new nest at Blackbottom Shoals could be a 
second attempt by the survivor from the predated nest at Sycamore Shoals, but I 
see no way of knowing.  On the other four nests at Blackbottom Shoals, I saw:  
1) one adult and one large nestling - (2) three large nestl
 ings - (3) one adult and two large nestlings - (4) four large nestlings.  In 
addition I saw two adults foraging in nearby Blackbottom Shoals, and later in 
the day I saw one adult fly across the river downstream of Sycamore Shoals, so 
for the day I tallied 16 Yellow-crowned Night-Herons and 1 Black-crowned 
Night-Heron in Elizabethton.
 
Also seen Sunday on Sycamore Shoals Rd. near the Animal Shelter was a 
Red-shouldered Hawk.  On the Elizabethton Summer Bird Count on June 17, there 
were 3 Red-shouldered Hawks present there in the woods behind the Sewage 
Treatment Plant, calling repeatedly, with one calling a little slower and more 
drawn out.  We saw the slow one through the trees, enough to encourage us to 
assert that the calls were not Blue Jays but Red-shouldereds.  I surmised that 
the pair had fledged at least one young, although I never did positively 
observe nesting.
 
Don Holt
Johnson City, TN