[Bristol-Birds] Re: Young Mockers in Buchanan County
- From: "Mayhorn" <mayhorn@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol Birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 14 Jul 2005 17:02:53 -0400
Wallace Coffey and Area Birders,
Wallace, thank you for your ideas concerning Northern Mockingbirds expanding
their nesting range to Buchanan County. One part of your reply especially
intrigued me - that concerning the lack of Northern Mockingbirds in Eastern
Kentucky. I know as a boy growning up in Pike County I never saw a mockingbird
there. However, I remembered seeing one a couple of months ago in Elkhorn City
KY, while visiting relatives there. Since reading your message I have been in
contact with some birders in that area, and it seems that without us having
realized it the mockers have moved into that part of Pike County. My wife's
uncle, who lives there, said that this spring he had a nest of mockers in his
yard, and that he was attacked by one of them when he ventured too close to the
shrub where the nest was located. He said he was used to seeing mockingbirds in
the area.
Another fellow, who lives in Elkhorn City, KY said the species had nested first
in his neighbor's yard, then in his yard for at least 10-12 years. One of the
reasons he remembers is that his wife gets upset because the mockers bully the
wrens that nest there also.
Another bird savvy friend originally from Letcher County KY, said that he, when
growning up there, never saw mockingbirds, but now, when he visits his father
in Whitesburg, KY, does see them there during the breeding season. If the
Buchanan County birds are the result of an expansion of the range from the
Eastern KY birds, this would be compatible with species expansion along the
river drainages, in this case (as you mentioned) the Levisa and Tug Fork, both
tributaries of the Big Sandy River system.
Regarding mockingbirds nesting in WV, another birding friend, who lives and
works in Mingo County along the Tug Fork, tells me that he has been seeing
mockingbirds there during the breeding season for several years, though he
didn't have an exact date. I also talked with a couple of veteran birders from
WV. I was told that mockers are nesting in Raleigh and Greenbrier Counties and
have been for some time. I also checked with Jim Phillips, the naturalist and
avid birder at Pipestem State Park in Summers County WV. According to his
records mockingbirds have been nesting in that county for the past 30 years. So
it seems that Buchanan County has been an island in the midst of these
expanding nesting areas, so I suppose it was just a matter of time before they
moved in.
Enjoy the birds,
Roger Mayhorn
Compton Mt
Buchanan County VA
Roger Mayhorn and Area Birders,
I will take a chance speculating why the mockingbird has expanded its range to
include heavily forested Buchanan County.
First, congratulations on filling in another gap in our aviabase of bird
distribution in the region. It is a significant contribution. You guys have
been well focused on a good local distribution problem. You kept your minds on
the question and your mind was prepared when the chances presented themselve (a
Pasture belief).
Mockers have been extending their range slowly north for much of the last
century. The surrounding mountain counties in Kentucky and West Virginia are
about as void of mockingbirds as is Buchanan County. The rest of Southwest
Virginia is getting extension of range from lower drainage influnces to the
south and east such as the Tennessee River and New River where the mockingbird
population is more dense.
I think the bigger picture is that Buchanan Co. is not as much influenced by
most of the same factors as some of its neighboring counties in Southwest
Virginia. That explains, in my view, why Russell and even Tazewell counties
have more mockingbirds.
It appears that some of your bird distribution issues may be closer connected
to the influnce of the Big Sandy River drainage of Kentucky. Russell, Wise,
etc. are in the Upper Tennessee River Basin and the Virginia Cumberlands.
Mockingbirds are more abundant and wider distributed in Tennessee than in
Kentucky.
Often, when a species extends it range north it moves up the rivers and
drainages. When a northern species extends south it comes down the mountain
ridges.
The mocker is at its greatest abundance in the lowlands, particularly in
tidewater and piedmont. Its upper altitudinal distribution range is about
3,000 feet elevation. So you can share our pleasure when 18 May 2005, Mike
Hagy, Randy Smith, Ron Harrington and myself had a Northern Mockingbird in
Burke's Garden.
I would simply venture that your lack of mockingbirds is because you are so
much more like your surrounding areas of West Virgnia and particularly
Kentucky.
Maybe your breeding mockers have "hopped" over into your mountain top area of
the Big Sandy and it's Levisa and Tug forks, etc. The mocker is extremely
sparse all around you in the Kentuck counties of Pike, Letcher, Knott, Floyd
and Martin. I doubt if there is a breeding record in any of the Eastern
Kentucky counties near you other than Floyd. It is almost as scare in
McDowell, Wyoming and Mercer counties of West Virginia.
Brainard Palmer-Ball, Jr. states that the mocker will nest wherever it finds
land distrubted by man and, today, is restricted to such areas. He says it has
likely increased dramatically in response to human alteration of the landscape.
He says it is rarely reported from forested areas but has occupied abandoned
farmland, rural roadways and reclaimed surface mines.
"In heavily forested areas, mockingbirds seem to be restricted to opnings
surrounding rural homsteads," Palmer-Ball, Jr. wrote (1996).
Perhaps that explains why your breeding mockers are in your opening on your
ridgetop in the tree in your yard :-)
Whatever, enjoy and great work !
Let's go birding.....
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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