[Bristol-Birds] We watched Night-Heron nest building !
- From: Wallace Coffey <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: 1-A Bristol-Birds <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 24 Mar 2003 21:57:22 -0400
I met Marion Finucane in Kingsport this evening to see her wonderful
discovery of an active Yellow-crowned Night-Heron's nest. Wow ! What an
experience !=20
Marion's excellent discovery, Sunday (3/23), establishes Sullivan County as
the fourth known East Tennessee county where the species has been recorded
breeding. The others are Carter, Greene and Blount. Yellow-crowneds are
rare in Tennessee during the breeding season. It was confirmed breeding in
just eight counties across the state during the Tennessee breeding bird
atlas project. That's the status as far as I can determine.
The nest is located along Reedy Creek near Holston Valley hospital in a
wooded area above the slow-flowing stream.
We were fortunate to watch the pair for nearly an hour as they continued to
construct their nest. The male was easily recognized early on by his
preening of the female as they stood above the nest in the evening sun.
As dusk fell over the nest site, the male flew from the nest tree to gather
nesting material. The nest, which is about 50 to 60 feet above the water in
a Sycamore tree, and about 10 feet out from the trunk, is on a horizontal
branch beneath the canopy.
The female stood atop the nest and watched as the male flew to a tree about
100 feet away and broke off twigs and branches for the nesting material.
Each time he returned to the nest, he presented the female with the material
and raised his 7 to 8 inch long back plumes into an erect fan that circled
in a beautiful display above his back. She received the branches and
carefully began to work them into the nest. She would countine to work
carefully at placing the material in the nest. He stood adjacent to the
nest as she worked and would leave a few minutes later to gather more.
He always gathered material from the same tree.=20
We watched perhaps a dozen such collections and deliveries. Once he appeared
to pick a small twig which she placee in the center of the nest. Mostly he
would gather larger branches by breaking them from the limbs with his beak.
He would sometimes drop one and have to get another. At times he would lose
his balance and nearly fall off a limb. He would search carefully through
the branches for what seemed to be a good branch to break and then creep out
or down a small branch and stretch to snatch and break it. Most of his
branch gathering was at a height of about 50 feet or more (about the same as
the nest). He would sometimes break off limbs that were about 24 inches in
length. But many were smaller.
The species is known to have nested in Northeast Tennessee's Carter County
along the Watauga River since 1979 and=20
Rick Knight wrote that possibly as far back as the 1960s. A nest was active
at Sycamore Shoals State Park along the river in the late 1990s.
The nest location is at the end of W. Ravine Street along the Kingsport
Greenbelt at N 36=B0 33' 25", W 82=B0 33' 47" and can be seen at the red X=
on a
map of Kingsport at the Topozone Website:
http://www.topozone.com/map.asp?z=3D17&n=3D4046657&e=3D360121&s=3D25&u=3D2
And, for some of the long-time TOS members, Marion is the daughter of Tom
Finucane who was a TOS leader and pioneer in hawk migration studies.
Let's go birding....
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, 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
Other related posts:
- » [Bristol-Birds] We watched Night-Heron nest building !
