FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] Sanderling, Merlin and Sooty now at South Holston

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Area Birders:
Don Holt again called from the field about 11:00 a.m. reporting that the Sooty 
Tern has now been in the Spring Creek Embayment near Musick's Campground on 
South Holston Lake for almost four hours and is appearing frequently throughout 
the morning.  He has been able to get many great looks at the bird.

The out-of-region birder who showed up is Bert Filemyr of Philadelphia, Pa. who 
is traveling through the area enroute to visit his daughter at college in 
Texas.  He has a laptop computer and GPS.  He told Don he was scanning birding 
list on websites when he saw that a Sooty Tern was being seen at South Holston 
Lake and he was not far away.  
He also was able to discover directions to Musick's Campground by searching on 
the internet websites (directions are on BBC website and TOS).  He followed the 
instructions and drove straight in.  He easily found the Sooty Tern.  He was 
thrilled to get it in both Virginia and Tennessee.

Filemyr said a Sooty Tern had recently been in New Jersey and he missed finding 
the bird.  He had taken a lot of teasing from his fellow birders because he had 
not seen the species.

Holt reported that the Sanderling is again there today.  He said that while a 
few shortebirds, including the Sanderling, were in a group on the "outer banks" 
(a name I suggested we use for the main island just off shore that can be waded 
to at this time), a Merlin dashed into them and busted the flock.  The birds 
scattered and later regrouped not far away.

Don had originally called because two men were shooting Canada Geese.  They 
were shooting from their boat at geese along and on the shoreline, dipping the 
dead birds with a net.  The season is open at South Holston and elsewhere as 
shown in the box below which I copied from the TWRA website.  Hunters may kill 
5 Canada Geese per day each through Sept. 15.  Wood Duck and Teal season opens 
Saturday.

      Canada Goose+ Sept.1 Sept.15 5 
      Wood Duck/Teal + (early season) Sept.11 Sept.15 4** 


It may not be considered sportsmanlike by other hunters and may not be legal to 
shoot the geese if they are not in the air but I doubt if anything would be 
done about it.   Don does have the number of the boat they were hunting from.

Let's go birding...

Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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