[TN-Bird] exotic finches at Hiwassee

9/18/04
Hiwassee Refuge 
Meigs County

Hi folks,

A trip of mine was cancelled, so I went out looking for water birds. 
I love the mountains, but sometimes the warblers and vireos just
don't do it for me and I need to find some charadriiformes.

From 6 am to 8 pm I birded a number of good spots from Marion County
through Roane County.  More on all that in a further post.

At about 4 pm I found very few birds at Hiwassee Refuge.  But
immediately next to the observation shelter, in the trees between it
and the check station, I saw 3 birds that I could not ID.  I spent a
number of years in the pet trade, and I never saw these guys.  The
fact that there were 3 of them makes me think it is exceedingly
unlikely that they got here on their own, so they must have been pets
somewhere.

They were very close in size to the Eastern Bluebirds which were near
them a few times.  Compared to the bluebirds, they had much shorter
tails, similar wings, and much stouter bills.  As a matter of fact,
when I first saw them fly from the ground to near the top of the
tree, I almost brushed them off as starlings.

The legs were dark (maybe black), and the bill was a dark blue/gray.

There were 2 different plumages.  2 birds were dark (adult male?) and
one was a washed-out, lighter color (female or immature?).  I'll
describe the dark birds, as I mostly paid attention to them.

There appeared to only be 2 colors of feathers:  a very dark, almost
gloss black (but no sheen that I saw.) and a "dirty white" or very
light gray.

There was what looked like some strong dark and light contrast head
markings, but it was hard to discern exactly as they both appeared to
be molting head feathers.  The overall impression was of several
parallel lines, alternating dark and light, with light just over the
eye.  

The back, wings and top of tail all appeared dark, though there was a
whitish line (not a bar) along the leading edge of the wing when it
was folded, that may have meant some sort of mark when the wing was
open.  But due to light and angle (which I couldn't do anything about
due to a fence) I never saw the open wings well from the top.

The chest was dark, the belly was light.  There was a sort of
backwards stickpin of light color coming up from the belly (sort of
the reverse of the red that comes down in a drip from the chest of a
Rose-breasted Grosbeak.)

The birds never vocalized, and I never saw them eat anything.  They
mostly were near, but not at, the top of a couple deciduous trees
that are about 30 feet tall.

I never got pictures that were worth anything, due to light, distance
and especially wind which made the branches move constantly.

Any ideas?  It would be great if other folks who visit there could
keep track of them - if these guys ever become established (I doubt
it) it would be nice to have it documented.

Charlie

=====
**************************************************
Charlie Muise, Naturalist near
Great Smoky Mountains National Park

"Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of cancer."  -Edward Abbey
**************************************************


                
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