FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] great birding moment (not TN)

[Charlie <cmmbirds@xxxxxxxxx>]

If you want to just read about TN - hit the delete key now!

This past Tuesday I had a couple non-birding friends visit.  Being
the fool I am, I decided that it would be fine to go on a hike in the
Smokies, even though we had over 4 inches rain at Tremont the day
before and surely more in the high country.  And Tuesday morning it
was raining pretty hard, too.

We decided to go to the NC side of Great Smoky Mountains National
Park.  Through the rain we drove, watching waterfalls I'd not seen
before (shoulda been a sign, right?).

Reaching Newfound Gap we decided to just keep going - couldn't see
much past the hood of my truck, never mind get a nice view.  

Juney Whank Falls was amazing.  I've not seen it before, and don't
know what is normal there, but I can assure you this wasn't it.  The
power of the water hitting the bottom was great and we could feel the
air rushing up from underneath it.

We continued down Lakeshore Drive to the end and hike through the
tunnel to the Goldmine Loop Trail.  Slogging our way through, sinking
to our ankles in mud at times, we were having a fun time.  Good thing
we'd prepared for wet!

Then, all of a sudden, there was no rain.  It didn't let up, didn't
slow down.   One minute all we could hear was water, the next it felt
like we were in a vaccuum.  I think the birds were just as surprised.
 Because about a minute after that, they all lit up at once.  My
non-birding friends were as amazed by the variety of songs as I was -
I counted 17 species of bird singing at once!  The most exciting was
a Cerulean Warbler (another reason they shouldn't build that blasted
road through the park's wilderness!).  But my friends were excited
when a nice male Indigo Bunting popped up.  They were not nearly as
excited as I when a Worm-eating Warbler started singing at our eye
level 7 feet away.  Not even when I explained that I birded over 2
years before I ever saw one.  They were too busy looking first at the
Pileated Woodpecker, then at the White-breasted Nuthatch bringing
food into a hole.

Eventually our stomachs called and we headed back to the truck
(through a 16" deluge pouring down the uphill trail).

Just to top it off, we came across a bobcat that was quite
cooperative, sitting in the road looking the opposite direction from
us as I slowed to a halt 30 feet away.  I swear that when that guy
finally looked around and saw us, he uttered a Homer Simpson-like
"D'oh!" and sped off into the woods.

The 2 hour drive home allowed us to see no less than 20 landslides.

I got home and kissed my sump pump.

Good day!

Charlie

=====
**************************************************
Charlie Muise, Senior Naturalist
Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont
Townsend, TN  lat 35 deg, 38'23"  long 83 deg, 41'22"

"Up, Sluggard, and waste not life; in the grave will be sleeping enough"
 - Ben Frankline, Poor Richard's Almanac

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