[TN-Bird] Kyker - duck bonanza!
- From: Charlie <cmmbirds@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: TN-Bird <TN-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 29 Jan 2006 17:16:08 -0800 (PST)
Hi folks,
After a great time at the TOS winter meeting on Saturday, we had to
come home early today because Allan wasn't feeling well.
So after we got home, I decided to go out a bit in south Blount
County. I wasn't disappointed.
First, I found a Common Loon! Jean Alexander and David Johnson first
found 2 loons the first week of the year, and several other folks got
to see them, but I had missed on 4 or 5 different tries. This might
not seem like an important species, but NOBODY reported any in Blount
County in 2005. This is the 3rd species that I've seen this month
that I missed in '05.
At Top of the World Lake, which is squeezed between the Foothills
Parkway and Great Smoky Mountains National Park, I saw a number of
Pied-billed Grebes (probably between 20 and 30) as well as about 6
Ring-necked Ducks and 5 Bufflehead.
Along Calderwood and Chilhowee Reservoirs (what used to be the Little
Tennessee River) I found about 15 more Pied-billed Grebes. At the
Tapoco Boat Launch, very near the Monroe County Line, I found 2
immature Bald Eagles. Several of us have seen 1 or 2 adults Bald
Eagles at this same location and in the area all month long, but this
is my first sighting of immature birds this year, and I'm not
familiar with any others.
Kyker Bottoms WMA (south west Blount County, off US 129) had more
ducks than I've ever seen there before:
20 Canada Geese
18 Gadwall
at least 75 American Wigeon (Tried real hard to make a Eurasian!)
9 American Black Duck
over 100 Mallards
6 Northern Shovellers
64 Northern Pintails Please tell me if you are aware of a higher
count of this species in east Tennessee.
35 Green-winged Teal
73 Ring-necked Ducks (but no scaup, which I'm missing so far)
Kyker also had:
4 Pied-billed Grebes
a Loggerhead Shrike, which is quite regular at the lowest parking
lot, which is the one with the barn.
2 immature or female Northern Harriers (my first of year)
The loon and harriers bring my Blount County total for 2006 to 87.
This time last year I was at 91, so there are 7 species I saw in the
county in January last year that I haven't seen this year. Not
surprising since water has been quite low until last week, and
blackbirds seem to have all but disappeared.
Charlie
*******************************************************************
Charlie Muise, Naturalist near
Great Smoky Mountains National Park
"To the dull mind all nature is leaden. To the illuminated mind
the whole world sparkles with light." - Ralph Waldo Emerson
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around
http://mail.yahoo.com
=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================
The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with
first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation.
You are also required to list the count 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
_____________________________________________________________
Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp
_____________________________________________________________
Other related posts:
- » [TN-Bird] Kyker - duck bonanza!
