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 =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------ Assistant Moderator Andy Jones Cleveland, OH ------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Dave Worley Rosedale, VA __________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ARCHIVES TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/ MAP RESOURCES Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com _____________________________________________________________