[TN-Bird] Going Cuckoo at Norris
- From: Carole Gobert <cpgobert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Tennessee Bird List <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 19 May 2011 17:13:06 -0400
Spent 5 hours starting at 9 a.m. walking around the Songbird Trail at Norris
Dam State Park in Anderson County this glorious day. When I arrived back at
the main parking lot sometime after 1 pm the highlight of the morning had been
getting great close looks at two Yellow-billed Cuckoos as they flew from tree
to tree, more or less together, in a grassy area about halfway down the trail.
I then decided to walk the short trail down by the water that starts at the
parking lot and goes about a tenth of a mile ending iat a stairway that leads
up to the main trail because I wanted to look for Brown Thrashers since I often
find them there and hadn?t managed to see one yet this morning. Well, I found
the thrashers, two of them down on the trail, so I stopped and watched them
until they disappeared into the brush. Almost immediately after they were gone
a brown bird with a long tail flew toward me and landed on a bare branch
perhaps 15-20 feet away. It didn?t quite look like a thrasher and when I got
my binoculars up I could see why. It was another Yellow-billed Cuckoo. I
guess it could have been one of the two I saw earlier but that was a good half
mile distant. While I stood there gaping at the Cuckoo a second one flew in,
landed briefly on her and they mated. Wow! Copulating Cuckoos! How often do
you get to see that? Way more exciting than the Brown-headed Cowbirds I?d
watched doing it in the grass earlier in the day.
After the cuckoos had left, I walked on a short distance and the White-eyed
Vireo that had been singing loudly as an accompaniment to the romancing cuckoos
popped out of the bushes and let me look at him for a few seconds. A bit
farther along the trail (almost to the stairway now) a sudden excitement of
small birds got my attention. There were Carolina Wrens, chickadees, chipping
and field sparrows, a downy woodpecker, a red-eyed vireo, a female redstart, a
goldfinch, two cardinals and two towhees all fluttering and fussing around a
tree at the top of the bank. Actually the larger birds (the cardinals and
towhees) weren?t fussing; they seemed to be merely observing. A hummingbird
even put in a brief appearance. I never could figure out what had them so
aggravated and after about 5 minutes they all left.
I ended up with 5 additional species from that short section of the trail that
I had walked by hours earlier.
Another special moment was sitting on the steps at the canoe launch at the weir
dam, eating a snack, when a lovely female Mallard calmly walked up to me and
silently asked for a bite of my fruit and nut bar. How could I refuse such a
polite request?
I know I've undercounted the swallows on my clecklist. I have a tough time
identifying them when they're up high and in constant motion. I've just listed
those that I'm sure of, i.e., that I saw at closer range.
48 species
Canada Goose 12
Mallard 3
Great Blue Heron 2
Green Heron 1
Broad-winged Hawk 1
American Coot 1
Mourning Dove 1
Yellow-billed Cuckoo 4
Ruby-throated Hummingbird 1
Downy Woodpecker 1
Northern Flicker 2
Eastern Wood-Pewee 2
Great Crested Flycatcher 1
Eastern Kingbird 2
White-eyed Vireo 2
Yellow-throated Vireo 1
Red-eyed Vireo 4
Blue Jay 3
American Crow 5
Northern Rough-winged Swallow 5
Purple Martin 1
Tree Swallow 1
Cliff Swallow 4
Carolina Chickadee 8
Tufted Titmouse 1
Carolina Wren 9
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher 2
Eastern Bluebird 14
American Robin 1
Gray Catbird 5
Northern Mockingbird 2
Brown Thrasher 2
European Starling 15
Cedar Waxwing 20
Northern Parula 2
Yellow-throated Warbler 1
American Redstart 1
Common Yellowthroat 2
Eastern Towhee 5
Chipping Sparrow 5
Field Sparrow 3
Song Sparrow 3
Northern Cardinal 10
Indigo Bunting 3
Brown-headed Cowbird 8
Orchard Oriole 5
Baltimore Oriole 1
American Goldfinch 3
This report was generated automatically by eBird v2 (http://ebird.org)
Carole Gobert, Knoxville, TN
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