The Phipps Bend Great Blue Heron rookery which we discovered two weeks ago on the Holston River in Hawkins County, TN is now active ! Feb. 3 may be the earliest date in this region for birds on the nests. Rick Phillips, Charlie Parker, Chris O'Bryan and I spent the day gathering bird records for Hawkins County along the "Bends of the Holston" to Rogersville and then thru Carter Valley and Stanley Valley north of U.S. 11W. We birded about 100 miles. On the backside of Phipps Bend, across the river from the original construction efforts for the nuclear power plant site, Chris O'Bryan and Wallace Coffey found two tall sycamore trees which were hosting a heronry of about 15 nests on Jan. 20, 2006. No birds were present. Today (Feb. 3), just before noon, we observed five (5) Great Blue Herons standing on five nests at the site which is at Miller Island at about 1100 feet elevation. It is located at 36°27'21" N, 82°48'41" W (WGS84/NAD83) USGS Stony Point Quad. Chris hiked along the river to make an accurate nest count which turned out to be 18 nests on this date. That was three more than we were able to count two weeks ago. Parker counted and recounted the birds on the nests. One bird was carefully adjusting sticks in its nest. We also found American Kestrel 3, Red-tailed Hawk 4 and Ring-billed Gull 1 on the river at Phipps Bend. We were so excited with this timely discovery for Don Miller's future book of the region that we immediately went to the burger restaurant on US 11W and had a big mess of froglegs ! That's right. We devoured a mess of froglegs. Everyone rolled up the sleeves and we all waded in. Twenty miles southwest along the river at Rogersville, we continued our search for active nest at two locations formerly found and reported by birder Susan Hubley who lives on John Sevier Lake. A couple of miles downstream from John Sevier Sevier Steam Plant and just below McDonald Hill, we again found active nests. Here Parker and O'Bryan again hiked along the river and counted seven (7) nest with another apparently about half under construction. Three Great Blue Herons were standing on three of those nests. Nearby were Palm Warbler 2, Cooper's Hawk 1 and a Red-tailed Hawk. Late last March 2005 Bill Grigsby and I visited nests reported online by Susan Hubley across the channel from her home on John Sevier Lake in the vicinity of Tunnell Hill Road. Eight nest had five birds present last year. Today we found those nests apparently in poor repair and no birds at the nests. One Great Blue was feeding at the edge of the massive cattails. This heronry may have been abandoned. Perhaps Susan can updated us on the status later this spring. As we closed out our day, we enjoyed a beautiful Red-shouldered Hawk on Carter's Valley Rd. just south of Church Hill in Hawkins Co. Rick Phillips got a great photo of the bird looking down on it from a hillside and showing the tail markings. It was perched on a utility line in an upland environment. This may be the tip of the migration movement for this species which frequents very upland habitat duriing it northward migration throughout February. A Wild Turkey was in the woods nearby. Smith Place Road, near Silver Lake Golfcourse, Holston River, Hawkins Co. we had many American Robins in the fields and lawns. We probably had 30 birds. At least a dozen Eastern Meadowlarks were perched on wires and singing during our visits in the morning and again in the afternoon. Numerous Purple Martin nest gourds were seen at a residence on Silver Lake Road. By mid-afternoon we took the air temperature and found it about about 65 degrees. A Red-tailed Hawk perched in a tree near habitat that looked extremely promising for harriers and Short-eared Owls. None were found. At Christians Bend Road, Holston River, we had 3 Pied-billed Grebes. A tree on Vine Ave., Surgoinsville, had 20 Rusty Blackbirds. On Stanley Valley Road, Phillips spotted 35 more Rusty Blackbirds. Don Miller is making steady progress on his proposed six-county book which will include Hamblen County and five adjacent counties of Greene, Hawkins, Granger, Jefferson and Cocke. His home county is Greene. Miller's area is adjacent to Rick Knight's five-county area of Carter and surrounding counties of Johnson, Sullivan, Washington and Unicoi -- known as Northeast Tennessee. Miller's work, along with Knight's upcoming revision of his book, will complete annotated check-list for a block of 11 counties in the upper most corner of East Tennessee. Let's go birding...... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN