Bristol Birders: Today (6/17), Ron Harrington and I changed our plans at the last minute and went sapsucker seeking. It was a good day ! We were able to discover Yellow-bellied Sapsuckers on three breeding territories in the Jefferson National Forest of Grayson County, VA. Just after completing our Cornell Birds in Forested Landscape survey in the Fairwood Area of the Mount Rogers National Recreation Area, we decided to do some spot checking over route we had not sampled. We headed up the four-mile length of the 'Possum Creek jeep trail along Stone Mountain to the "Scales" at 4,400 feet elevation at the Appalachian Trail and Pine Mountain. We got on the Forest Service back country Route 613 at 8:30 a.m. We spent the morning in impressive habitat. Our first bird was a drumming and calling male at 4,060 feet about 2.5 miles up. The second came just a 1/2 mile further at 4,200 feet when a female came to a tape recording of the sounds of a screech-owl being mobed by chickadees. The thrid was at 4,300 feet when a male responded to a tape and came for a close look at 3.5 miles up. About 1.5 miles up from the bottom we did see an Eastern Screech-owl flapping through the canopy after we just happened to stop and was walking near where he evidently was roosting along the road :-) U.S. Forest Service biologist Cecil Thomas wrote to say he had found two sapsucker males on Wednesday -- one at Grindstone Campground and the other along State Route 600 about half way up to Elk Garden. At 4,280 feet today on the jeep trail, Ron and I saw a Black-throated Green Warbler gathering nesting materials in the road and flying off down the slope. Canada Warblers are in full song in good numbers and so is the Veery. Let's go birding..... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST Bristol Birds Net Photo Gallery located at: http://f2.pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/jwcoffeyy/album?.dir=/efd5 This is a regional birding list sponsored by the Bristol Bird Club to facilitate communications between birders and bird clubs of Southwest Virginia and Northeast Tennessee. -------------------------------------------------- You are subscribed to Bristol-Birds. To post to this mailing list, simply send an email to: bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send an email to bristol-birds-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with the one word 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. -------------------------------------------------- Wallace Coffey, Moderator wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (423)764-****