FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Standifer Gap Marsh, Least Bittern, Virginia Rail

["David & Gloria Patterson" <dgpatterson@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Standifer Gap Marsh, Chattanooga, Hamilton County, TN
June 13, 2003,  10 - 12 AM
This is long; in brief:  Two young Least Bitterns and some possible young 
Virginia Rails.


VIRGINIA RAIL:  Standing at the east edge of the water, I heard a Virginia Rail 
alarm note, repeated emphatically, but I couldn't see the rail.  After a few 
minutes I began wading thru 5-foot cattails toward it.  It kept making the 
alarm notes and kept about 5 or 6 feet from me, and eventually I had followed 
it about 150 feet to the edge of the grassy field, where it stopped sounding.  
(I decided that it thought I was lost in the marsh and needed to be guided to 
appropriate human habitat.)

I waded by another route back to the spot where I first heard it, and again it 
began the alarm notes.  This time I didn't move, and it came closer, and I had 
excellent views.  It was rather dull looking except for the red bill.  Three 
times I thought I glimpsed a smaller immature; once I thought I saw a bit of 
black down.  I searched the area for a nest, with no luck.  

During the entire time I could hear other Virginia Rails a few hundred feet to 
the north, making the usual 2-note mating call and sometimes the descending 
laugh.  One seemed to be making 3-note calls.


MUSKRAT:  In the same area there are 5 clumps of Iris (these had large yellow 
flowers a few weeks ago), dense, circular, 6 feet in diameter and 6 feet taller 
than water level. The ground level under the clumps is about a foot higher than 
the surrounding area, about level with the water.  I found some apparent 
simple, abandoned or unfinished, nests in the Iris. One nest had about 2 
gallons of fine dead wet grass in 2-inch balls more-or less strung together 
like sausages, in a heap.  (Wednesday evening we had a hard rain). It looked 
something like a big pile of horse manure.  I dug around in this and found 5 or 
6 baby rats, looked like muskrats to me, wide flat heads with squared-off 
noses, about 6 inches nose to tip of tail, nice brown fur, 2-inch bare black 
rough pointed tails, eyes not open yet.  They scrambled to get under the nest 
material I had pushed aside, made no noise, even when I picked them up by tails 
or napes.


GREEN TREE FROG:  While looking at the muskrats I came face to face with a 
Green Tree Frog.


LEAST BITTERN:  Still looking in the same clump that had the Muskrats I caught 
a glimpse of something falling; it looked like an old cattail top, except that 
I was in a clump of Iris.  Poking around to see what it really was, I found it 
was a young Least Bittern.  It had apparently been above my head level all the 
time I was examining the muskrats, and then dropped lower as I got closer to 
it.  It was hanging with its head caught in an axil of the iris, and I released 
it.  (I have since read that the young hook their heads over branches to help 
in climbing; it could have gotten loose without my help.) 

It was smaller than an adult, downy except for its wings.  Its wing feathers 
were still about 1/3 in quills.  Its beak appeared nearly full sized, and its 
legs were long and strong looking.  It obviously could climb and walk pretty 
well, but it would have been unable to fly.  Later, in the same clump, I found 
a smaller one, this one all downy and no obvious wing feathers.  

There were two possible nests in the clump, nothing more than a 6-inch circle 
with a handful of grass-like fibres flattened across the bottom.

I didn't see an adult at any time today; of course most of the time I was 
looking down.


AMERICAN KESTREL:  Four Red-winged Blackbirds were harrassing a Kestrel out 
over the grass / parking lots.
 

CONSTRUCTION of the two new 5-foot culverts under the tracks is complete.



David Patterson
Chattanooga, TN

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