Bert Hale and Wallace Coffey birded portions of the Cherokee National Forest and South Holston Lake in Sullivan Co., TN and Washington Co, VA Tuesday, (4/16) finding some fun birds throughout the morning. We counted 7 Eared Grebes at Musick's Campground and 6 Double-crested Cormorants. A single=20 Common Tern was floating on a log in the middle of the lake. Many Ring-billed Gulls and a couple of=20 Pied-billed Grebes were present. From the sign-in box at Musick's we could hear a loud singing White-crowned Sparrow near the garden. These birds stay around rather late into the spring. Near the cove at Brown's Farm along the lake in Virginia we had our first House Wrens of the spring (2) -- full of song. Probably our best discovery of the day was a 100-square foot area of Climbing Fern growing right along the roadside in the mountains! You know how rare that is! It was astonishing. Ken Hale found a great patch some years ago at Laurel Bed Lake in the Clinch Mountains. We have a station for this on the TVA property in the Big Bend=20 downstream from the Weir Dam in Sullivan Co. It is a small station.=20 Today's Climbing Fern was at 2,400 feet elevation along Forest Service Route 32, at Mill Creek in the Offset Area of the Cherokee National Forest in Sullivan County, TN. If you need coordinates for your GPS unit use 36=B0 35' 17.3"N, 81=B0 55' 35.5"W. That's what our unit read. During the route through Jacob's Creek, Sowbed Gap and the Offset, Bert and I enjoyed a Broad-winged Hawk, many Black-throated Green Warblers, Eastern Phoebes building a nest in the up-side-down roots of a fallen tree, Blue-gray Gnatcatchers, Red-eyed Vireo, Black-and-white Warblers, Ovenbirds, Northern Parulas, Yellow-throated Warbler, Louisiana Waterthrush, Hooded Warblers and Dark-eyed Juncos to name a few. It was a great day to be birding and enjoying nature. Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN ************************************************* BRISTOL BIRDS NET LIST 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. It serves the Russell County Bird Club, Herndon Chapter TOS, Greeneville TOS Chapter, Blue Ridge Birders Club, Butternut Nature Club, Buchanan County Bird Club, Bristol Bird Club, Clinch Valley Bird Club and Cumberland Nature Club. -------------------------------------------------- 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 jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423)764-3958