[TN-Bird] FWD: App Trail point counts
- From: kde@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- To: Tennessee Birds <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 09:45:52 -0400 (EDT)
Forwarded from the Carolina Birds listserv. Contact Kevin Caldwell
if you are interested in helping to perform any of the counts.
Dean Edwards
Knoxville, TN
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Mon, 7 Jun 2010 06:38:06 -0700 (PDT)
From: Kevin Caldwell <mtssea@xxxxxxxxx>
To: Carolina Birds <carolinabirds@xxxxxxxx>
Subject: App Trail point counts
The App Trail point counts are under way and to date I've completed three
routes of approx 10 to 11 points, more points if higher winds had not whipped
up on all 3 surveys. At total of 31 points and 310 listening minutes @ 10 mins
per point and only 4000 feet elevation and higher - mostly 4500+.
This is also another reminder / invitation to experience song-ID birders still
interested in running a route, which is a volunteer activity to please
consider taking a route - my contact info is below. There are still many
routes that will be left undone, esp on the TN/NC line west of Roan Mountain.
These are very interesting routes - especially places like the Bald Mountains
and Bluff Mtn (Madison Co) as well as the Great Smokies Nat'l Park. And most
start @ or very near the trailhead. These includes routes along the AT from
the western Nantahalas @ the NC/GA border to Mount Rogers...give it some
thought!
Anyway - by location and rare / watch list species observed on my three routes
so far its:
1) Sam's Gap (AT south) - on the TN/NC line west of I-26 - no ceruleans (again)
but least flycatcher (2), brown creepers (2), and rose-breasted grosbeaks (~5).
2) Winding Stair (AT south) - due south of the pass on Hwy 64 west of Franklin
- brown creeper (3), yellow bellied sapsucker (1, male), rose-breasted (~7)
3) Winespring-to-Wayah Bald - north of Hwy 64 about 1 air-mile - brown creeper
(1) rose-breasted (1). Curiously - very few rose-breasted's on this route. And
quite a bit of American beech and beech-gap forest die-off - this is perhaps
due to the beech-bark blister and probably not new at all but the first I've
seen recently. I'm sure others have seen larger and worse.
A standard array of birds includes the ubiquitous REVI and Ovenbird - the
former nearly absent from Winespring however...perhaps due to foggy morning,
Most sparse of the warblers are Canada, Northern Parula, and Hooded - the
latter petering out around 4200 feet (it seems). AT nearly every point or
every few are B&W, BT Blue and BT Gree warbs, just a few blackburnians, plenty
of chestnut sided's. Towhees and DE junco's are everywhere, wood thrush and
veery's are just scattered as are EW pewees. Chimney swift is more common
than you'd think though not everywhere - I'm loving finding (by ear) the
"wild", forest interior birds and looking for possible open-topped hollow trees
they'll nest in way back in deep forest. Overall woodpeckers are sparse but a
few downy, pileated, and a paired Hairy WP have been seen or heard...no
flickers so far. Crows and blue jays are just as sporadic, curiously.
Of note are the two grouse females with chicks, one each in the Winding Stair /
Winespring area routes, and yesterday a female with 5 chicks with her all of
which could fly. She clucked & hissed at me and even approached me in
challenge before flying away.
Least FC is listed by NCNHP as a watch list species but I'm curious if it
shouldn't have higher rank & status. These AT routes are perhaps 25% of the
locations throughout the southern Blue Ridge (including similar elevations &
habitats in TN / GA / VA) that I am surveying in 2010 (or since 2005 on moving
back to the So.Apps). Sams Gap is the only location I've found them yet in six
seasons - granted I'm not always in high elevation habitats. I will have
probably 60 to 70 total field dates (all in the 6 to 10 am window) in the NC
Blue Ridge by July 7th and many of these fully within its potential habitat -
and I have only one location for this species. Likewise with Coopers Hawk -
its listed as S3S4 ("vulernable" to "apparently secure") by NCNHP but for the
mountain region I have only one observation (female) in 2010 near Lake Lure and
have not heard a single male singing / calling - anywher. Perhaps I'm
overlooking it...but I think its far less
common in the mountains at least. Maybe its pied / coastal populations are
higher? For both of these birds I'm referring to breeding populatinos.
Anyway - It looks like high winds and fog will be the issues to contend with on
the routes, but that was expected - it is perhaps the only major downside to
the high elevation surveys.
Kevin Caldwell
Conservation Biologist
Mountains-to-Sea Ecological, Inc.
828-551-8225 / MtsSea@xxxxxxxxx
87 Ivy Bluffs Rd / Marshall, NC 28753
www.MTSecological.com
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