Area Birders, Here is a posting from today's Virginia listserv by Sue Heath of George Mason University. I thought you would find it interesting. I was in the same area Sunday and added Hermit Thrush on the gravel road to Whitetop Mountain from Elk Garden. Also saw and heard a Pine Siskin on the road in the open meadows on top. I missed the Alder Flycatcher at the beaver pond between Whitetop Community and Whitetop Station at the Virginia Creeper Trail. It started raining before I could get to Whitetop Station. I was diappointed that the area along the road of the wetlands has been filled with slate and someone is evidently going to build something there. I don't know if this is an actual intrusion into the standing water area but it seems to be a wetland encroachment. The water is down a little and not up to the fill area. The beaver lodge is massive. Also had a meadowlark on top of Whitetop and don't know if I remember that species up there in the past. Several Canada Warblers on the way up to the Iron Mountain overlook and run-a-way ramp along Va Rt. 600 below 4,000 feet. Heard a distant wabler buzzing near Old Rt. 600 interesection and Va Rt. 600 and got out to check for Golden-wing and Blue-wing types. Heard it one more time but it was breezy and could not get a confirmation. Let's go birding..... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN -----------------------------BEGIN FORWARD---------------------- Hello everyone, Todd Day, Ian Topolsky, and myself took off last Friday for some southwestern Virginia birding. None of us had ever birded the Whitetop Mountain area and we wanted to do a bit of exploring. We left on Friday afternoon around 3:30 and county/city birded our way down to Marion which is on I-81 about 40 miles north of Tennessee where we spent Friday night. The next morning found us heading over the ridge along Rt. 16. We found a number of high elevation breeders there including CHESTNUT-SIDED WARBLER, SLATE-COLORED JUNCO, BLACK-THROATED BLUE WARBLER AND BLACK-THROATED GREEN WARBLER. Down the ridge into Grayson County we found expected species including numerous WILLOW FLYCATCHERS, always a treat to hear singing. With excellent directions from Glen Eller, we found our target species, ALDER FLYCATCHER, at Whitetop Station along with a singing LEAST FLYCATCHER. From there we made a brief foray into Washington County to get a few species there and find a Chimney Swift for my county list. We found them in Damascas, home of the Trail Days event for AT hikers and the bike trail down the mountain through beautiful scenery. Back in Grayson County, we headed up Rt. 600 to the ridge along Whitetop Mountain. There weren't many birds there but the view was nice. A singing BLUE-HEADED VIREO kept us entertained. We then took Rt. 58 through numerous towns including Mouth of Wilson whose name has always intrigued me, Galax (an independent city for you city listers) and over to I-77. We headed north from there to Highland County which I'll send another e-mail about. Sue -- Susan A. Heath George Mason University Environmental Science Department Fairfax, VA Secretary, Virginia Avian Records Committee Keeper, Virginia Comp List at www.virginiabirding.org You are subscribed to VA-BIRD. To post to this mailing list, simply send email to va-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx To unsubscribe, send email to va-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field.