An apparent Least Flycatcher's nest was discovered today (5/20) in a small grove of young trees along Low Gap Branch in Shady Valley, Johnson County, TN at an elevation of about 2,810 feet. A noisy male was on territory about the nest. Bill Grigsby and Wallace Coffey found the nest shortly after 8 a.m. while searching for the specie's nest in the bog-like open understory. It is located about 15 feet above the ground in the horizontal fork of a wild cherry and about two or three feet from its small trunk. It looks very similar to more than a half dozen such nests I have found 25 miles NE of this location in Smyth County, Virginia. Many of those nests were, however, in upright forks of similar size trees. The Shady Valley nest is rather exposed and well under the canopy of nearby trees. It has a slight global shape, very compact and about 3 inches in outside diameter. It appears to be deep in shape. No female was seen during the hour we were present. The literature states that the nest is built by the female. The male was constantly flying about the small grove and, at times, perched several feet above the nest. Once or twice it drove other small birds away from the vicinity. It gave its typical call rather constantly while we were present. Low Gap Branch is a small stream running about 150 to 175 feet along the northeast side of the triangular-shaped grove. The nest is 50 feet or less from the stream and it was along this edge that the male Least Flycatcher constantly flew back and forth and often around and in the nest tree. The grove is about one-half acre in size, based on our rough estimates of its outer measurements. The grove contains several red maples, wild cherries, a few sapling white oaks and a dominant white pine in the more dry area. We did not attempt to note all of the tree species. Johnson County is only the third county I know of in East Tennessee where the Least Flycatcher nests with Carter County being the only other in Northeast Tennessee. Albert Ganier of Nashville and Bruce Tyler of Johnson City, Tenn. reported the Least Flycatcher as "fairly common, chiefly in the woodlands along the Creek" 5-8 Jun 1934. It was the first time Ganier had recorded the species as a summer resident in Tennessee. Tuesday I found another bird singing on apparent territory at Orchard Bog in Shady Valley. Let's go birding..... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================