Per Dean Edwards request for information: Don Holt and I made it in and out last night in his 1988 Volvo wagon. The ruts are caused by 4WDs mucking up the road and it's bad. Fortunately Don's car is down to, or below, the primer coat so he didn't mind dragging it through the branches on the far right side to sort of fit on the ridges between the ruts. Since it's a dirt road it wouldn't take but an hour or so with a grader to fix it, but whose road is it? Railroad, TWRA, Cocke County? I suggest calling all of them. Maybe they just don't know. I suggest kicking the tires of every 4WD pickup you see to set off the car alarm. Don't get mad, get even. We had a great evening of easy chair birding. Don brought the chairs and we set up out scopes shortly after 4 p.m. and held a seminar on shorebird I.D. over the next three hours or so. The list: Pied-billed Grebe Double-crested Cormorant (many) Cattle Egrets (3, late) Great Egret (many) Great Blue Heron, few Green Heron, a handful but almost closest birds to us. Little Blue Heron, 1 immature Tennessee Penguin 2 (Nycticorax nycticorax) Wood Duck Mallard Blue-winged Teal (6) American Wigeon Bald Eagle (adult flew in at sunset and roosted on the other side, a great coda to a wonderful day's birding) Osprey, 3-4 Killdeer, abundant Semipalmated Plover Sanderling Least Sandpiper, commonest peep Pectoral Sandpiper, also common Semipalmated Sanpiper Spotted Sandpiper Stilt Sandpiper, 5-6 Western Sandpiper Lesser Yellowlegs, 3-4 Caspian Tern (4 at dusk) Belted Kingfisher Pileated Woodpecker, calling American Goldfinch flyover several landbirds you have in your yard at home. Almost worth stealing an SUV to get there. James Brooks =================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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================