[TN-Bird] Maryville Greenway birds - brown rock doves

Last weekend I took a short walk on the Maryville Greenway (Blount County) 
and was so taken with the place that I returned this past weekend.  There's 
a lovely little stream that the path follows, with several small wooden 
bridges crossing it.  The place is just teeming with birds.  Mostly the 
garden variety... lots of robins, cardinals, starlings, etc.  But I've also 
seen a tree full of cedar waxwings, a little green heron who came by to fish 
during a thunder storm Saturday morning when I was taking cover under an 
overpass; I managed to take several photographs of it as it moved around 
from rock to bank,to rock and finally landed a small fish.  And there is a 
muskrat that I saw two days in a row swimming in the stream and grazing on 
the far bank amid the tall grasses. I followed it downstream as it swam with 
its mouth full of greenery, eventually disappearing under the water into its 
underground home.

The first day I was there I saw an unusually colored rock dove (darn, I 
didn't have my camera) out in the open.  It was dark brown with light brown 
wings and a white tail.  There is a pair of these doves roosting under the 
third overpass.  When I returned with the camera I could not find it in the 
open and the pictures I took of the pair on their roost are pretty dark.  My 
Sibley's indicates that these brown rock doves are scarce.

I watched a swallow repeatedly fly into/out of a pipe under the next 
overpass; there were quite a few swallows flitting about (I'm really lame at 
identifying swallows but I think they're either bank or rough winged 
swallows.  I got a pretty good picture of one sitting on a sign so maybe 
someone can ID it for me).

This is a really nice little park.  It is on Lamar Alexander Parkway (Route 
321) off Court Circle. Maryville College is about a block away on the other 
side of the Parkway. The park didn't appear to have a name; the sign just 
says Maryville Greenway.  If anyone wants to check it out and needs more 
detailed directions, let me know.

Carole Gobert
Knoxville, TN

_________________________________________________________________
Help STOP SPAM with the new MSN 8 and get 2 months FREE*  
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail

=================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.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
     Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
          web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
    TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
        jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx      (423) 764-3958
=========================================================

Other related posts: