Ed Talbott and Area Birders, In response to your question: "Wallace, do you have the status of summer Yellow-rumped Warblers in the Grayson Highlands area?" The breeding season status of the Yellow-rumped Warbler in the Whitetop-Mt. Rogers-Grayson Highlands complex is a rare and local summer resident and, no doubt breeding in larger numbers than we have detected in the high country. My records indicate it has been recorded in the Grayson Highlands area since 2001. There are few public records. We have an apparent breeding record from Grayson Highlands State Park area: Alan Kneide had "a family" of Yellow-rumped Warbler "evidently breeding" down the Grayson Virginia Highlands Horse Trail in the park last 14-15 August (2004). Yellow-rumps have been breeding in the region since the early 1990s. The species is expanding its southeast breeding range in spruce and fir areas above 4,000 feet throughout our region. It began to establish itself at Roan Mountain Jun-16-Jul 1993 (pair, nest, 2 young) on the North Carolina side. John Gerwin, of the North Carolina State Museum of Natural Science, and Rick Knight of Johnson City) there established the only breeding record south of West Virginia in the Appalachians at that time. The observation you and Michelle just reported is another valuable link. For those who have a chance to possibly find a nest, it is usually built on horizontal limbs about two-thirds out from the trunk, but none at the outermost end. They are conspicuous from below but not from above. They may be expected 10 to 15 feet from the ground but possibly lower. You might expect mammal hair and featherws woven in the nest cup. The nest are almost always in evergreens such as spruce and fir (Arthur Cleveland Bent, 1953). Let's go birding..... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN ----- June 27, 2005 7:27 AM -Ed Talbott wrote ---- > The big surprise of the day was a male Yellow-rumped Warbler in breeding > plumage singing from the top of a spruce > tree that we overlooked from one of the rocky outcrops. . .Wallace, do you > have the status of summer Yellow-rumped Warblers in the > Grayson Highlands area? I know they are found on Roan Mt. in June and > Mike Boatwright found two on Whitetop on June 28, 2004. Thanks. ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST Bristol Birds Net Photo Gallery located at: http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jwcoffeyy/album?.dir=/efd5 This is a regional birding list sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club to facilitate communications between birders and bird clubs of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. -------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to Bristol-Birds. To post to this mailing list, simply send an email to: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send an email to bristol-birds-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the one word 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. -------------------------------------------------- Wallace Coffey, Moderator wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (423)764-****