FreeLists / bristol-birds / [Bristol-Birds] The Wild Life - Hurricane Frances blows in flocks of coastal birds

["Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>]

The Wild Life - Hurricane Frances blows in flocks of coastal birds 
By James Brooks
Press Staff Writer
jbrooks@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It rained birds in East Tennessee Thursday, Greene County's Don Miller said. 
One of the problems of having a day job is that every five or 10 years a 
hurricane blows itself out in East Tennessee with a fallout of coastal birds, 
and I have to work. 

It is a sport for the retired, the self-employed, students, professional 
biologists, firefighters, people on trust funds and birders with no visible 
means of support. I hope I'll be in one of those groups when the next hurricane 
blows through, unless it's Ivan next week. 

The rule for inland hurricanes is that they don't blow through East Tennessee 
on a weekend. 

For the lucky few, the time and place to be was Musick's Campground at dusk 
Thursday as the bands of rain from Hurricane Frances began to abate. 

Just about quitting time for the rest of us, Kingsport firefighter Rack Cross 
saw 14 Black-bellied Plovers fly in at the point on South Holston Lake. Along 
with them were 14 chunky gray shorebirds. With biologist Tom McNeill and J.T. 
McNeill, they pored over the field guides and decided they were Red Knots. 

These are salt-water coastal migrants that breed in Canada's far north and fly 
immense distances without stopping. In the spring, when jillions of horseshoe 
crabs pull themselves out to spawn and die on the New Jersey and Delaware 
coasts, the Red Knots make their sole stop to feast on the eggs and fatten up 
for their own breeding season. 

As Frances moved over Tennessee, the counter-clockwise motion of her winds and 
rains apparently forced these southbound birds inland. The rain piled up 
against the mountains, allowing enough clear space on this side to land and 
rest before they continued to South America. The knots were gone by dark. You 
had to be there. 

Wallace Coffey showed up and agreed with the identification. While they were 
there, nine Black Terns, three Caspian Terns, eight Common Terns and one 
Forster's Tern were also spotted - above average this far from the coast. 

By 7 p.m., thanks to the miracle of cell phones, about a dozen birders were 
present, including Rick Knight, who has worked identifying birds on oilrigs in 
the Gulf of Mexico. It's one of those filthy jobs that someone has to do. 
Knight identified an adult Sooty Tern flying down the lake. Sooties nest by the 
thousands across from Fort Jefferson out from Key West, Fla., and are all over 
the Caribbean. Their name comes from the mostly black juveniles. The adults 
have a striking black-and-white pattern. This one got here the long way around. 

The difference was striking for Miller, who birded Greene County after 5 p.m. 
and found a single Black-bellied Plover and shorebirds normal for this area: 
Solitary, Least, Pectoral Sandpipers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and 
Semipalmated Plovers. 

The magic on this day really took place at Musick's on Holston Lake. At dusk, a 
Whimbrel flew in and landed on the point. This bird, in the Curlew family, is a 
shorebird with a long, droopy bill and stripes over the head. One population 
nests above Hudson's Bay and migrates down the East Coast. The largest 
population nests in Alaska and migrates along the China coast, where they are 
one of the commonest migrating shorebirds.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++=
Forward by:
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN


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