FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Rankin: little blues and shorebirds

["michael sylva" <mtnsylva@xxxxxxx>]

Douglas Lake has been lowered 2 feet, to 992', exposing about a 1/2 acre of 
mudflat in a small embayment 1/2 mile north of the Rankin Bridge boat launch.  
It's on private land, but can be accessed by, and viewed from, a boat without 
prior consent by the owner.  We paddled in yesterday afternoon and observed 
about 60 KILLDEER, 5 SOLITARY SANDPIPERS, 2 SPOTTED SANDPIPERS, and a single 
LEAST SANDPIPER. Two white long-legged waders glided into the nearby shallows.  
Their thickish gray bills identified them as juvenile LITTLE BLUE HERONS.

On the opposite side of the riverbed, we counted 15 DOUBLE-CRESTED CORMORANT  
nests in a row of cottonwoods.    

There are dozens of GREAT EGRETS, GREAT BLUE HERONS, GREEN HERONS, and 
BLACK-CROWNED NIGHT HERONS  throughout the Rankin area. WOOD DUCKS are also 
plentiful, and adult and juvenile OSPREYS are common.  In the evening, hundreds 
of swallows fly southward toward the power lines that cross the lower end of 
the WMA.  The little blue herons roosted on an exposed limb in the egret 
rookery across the lake from the tipple.

Michael Sledjeski & Leslie Gibbens
Del Rio, Cocke county, Central East TN          
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