[TN-Bird] Bledsoe County Dec. 29 BirdBlitz/unofficial Christmas count results

On Monday, Dec. 29, 2008, Joseph & Anita Mast, Stephen Stedman, and I 
intensively birded northern Bledsoe County in an unofficial Christmas count 
centered 3.7 miles NNE of downtown Pikeville. In nearly perfect weather, we 
found 76 countable species (see below) in 19 daylight party hours and 3.5 
owling party hours.

Most of the effort was in the northern Sequatchie Valley, though Steve spent 
the morning on the Cumberland Plateau. While he found plenty of birds up 
there, when we went up on Walden Ridge (southeast of the valley) in the 
early afternoon, we found few birds and quickly headed back down to the much 
birdier valley. With no sizable lakes, waterbirds limited the species list. 
Notable missed species were Great Horned Owl and woodcock (despite perfect 
hearing conditions in the morning and evening), Turkey Vulture, Cooper's 
Hawk, and cowbird. We had no luck with shrikes or Short-eared Owl, though we 
searched diligently for them.

Notable birds were a Ruddy Duck found by Joseph & Anita on Swafford Pond and 
a House Wren found by Steve on the plateau. He also found 4 Red-breasted 
Nuthatches, an uncommon bird this winter. Eurasian Collared-Doves were seen 
in several places, with 22 found at the reliable spot around the barn at the 
intersection of Upper East Valley Road and Old Dayton Road just east of 
Pikeville. Sandhill Cranes were numerous, flying and apparently feeding 
around Pikeville, with an estimated 1131 recorded. Among my first birds of 
the day were two adult-plumaged Whooping Cranes behind Brushy Cemetery about 
1.5 miles NE of Ninemile in the valley. I heard them calling in the light 
fog and then viewed them walking among the cows in a pasture several hundred 
yards away before they flew up and landed again. Eventually they walked 
behind a low ridge, and I never saw them again, despite checking in the 
afternoon. With Whooping Crane, the count list would be 77 species. [I've 
had a Whooping Crane season, between seeing countable birds at Aransas in 
November, one of the Hiwassee birds in early December, and 8 birds in TWO 
groups on the White County CBC last week.] As with other nearby counts, the 
berry-eating birds were notably numerous (e.g., 22 Hermit Thrushes).

Stephen Stedman will be posting the results on his website, 
http://iweb.tntech.edu/sstedman/birds.htm

-Ed LeGrand
Cumberland County 

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