TN-Birders, Rich Phillips, Don Carrier and all..... Today was exactly the wonderful, warm, day Rick Phillps described. I spent a few hours at the Weir Dam and South Holston Dam reservation this afternoon in Sullivan Co. Most of it was on foot searching conifer stands for possible Brown-headed Nuthatches and/or roosting owls. No luck. I did not search Osceola Island. My efforts were focused on the wider area along the river and up the road to the dam and beyond the overlook. I found that the Mallards are in pairs -- at least five or six pairs at the bridge near the water intake below the weir. Up stream from the weir, near the turbine generation spillway, I saw at least eight pairs of Buffleheads and the males were swimming between their apparent mates and other approaching males. There were several encounters as the males would chase and fight to keep the approaching males away. I spent a little while on nearby Pemberton Rd. and on foot for awhile at PowerLine Farms. Of note was about 20 American Wigeon at the Pemberton Rd. "S" curve pond. This is the first time I have had any significant numbers of them there. A few Canada Geese were nearby but the Ross's Goose, seen with them not long ago by Rick Knight, was nowhere to be found. Several Great Blue Herons are present upstream of the Central Holston Bridge and I searched again to see if any birds were carrying sticks. They are actively flying about and landing in trees. This is not anything to get too excited about. However, the possiblity of staging to build a new heronry is not out of the question. I am still not sure if a group of birds just migrate in and start building nests the first day they arrive at a potential heronry site or if the numbers build up over a week. So the question is: how do the birds get together and start a site when they have been solitary most of the winter ? What suddenly triggers their arrival and selection of a site ? Is their an "alpha" bird that just says "here we are and everyone needs to get to work building nests" ? Has that group already arrived near the Big Bend of the river ? Is the signal going to be understood from wherever any day now ? Maybe not. Let's go birding..... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN ----- Original Message ----- From: Rick Phillips To: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx Sent: Monday, January 30, 2006 9:00 PM Subject: [Bristol-Birds] birding at weir dam Birded for a while this morning at the Weir Dam near South Holston Lake. Waterfowl were present in good numbers although only a few species represented. It was a really nice day to do some birding. Can't recall too many January days looking for waterfowl in my shirtsleeves! Bufflehead American Widgeon Lesser Scaup Belted Kingfisher Common Raven Golden-crowned Kinglet Eastern Bluebird American Robin Fieldsheet writeup can be viewed at: http://webpages.charter.net/mtnsunfish/Jan302006/fieldsheet02.html Rick Rick Phillips Kingsport, Tennessee