[Bristol-Birds] historical Green Heron rookeries for Carter and Washington Co., TN

From: "BBC Net" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: "'bristol-birds'" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 20 Oct 2014 01:33:13 -0400
HISTORICAL GREEN HERON ROOKERIES FOR CARTER AND WASHINGTON CO., TN

DISCOVERED IN 1971 LITARATURE AND NOT WELL KNOWN TO AREA RESEARCHERS

 

While searching historical mammal data published 40 years ago, I found
several

records of Green Heron rookeries for Boone Lake and Watauga Lake which were 

published in the October 1971 (Vol. 46)  issue of the Journal of the
Tennessee 

Academy of Science. 

 

The authors were known to birders and biologists of the region:

Lanny Phillips was a biology student at East Tennessee State University.  He
did the

study under the supervision of Dr. Milo Richmond who was on the faculty at

Cornell University, Ithica, NY, at the time the journal was printed.
Richmond had

been an ETSU faculty member.  Phillips' research was for his thesis (M.S.)
1969.

 

The title of the publication is The Distribution of Vertebrates on the
Islands of

Boone and Watauga Lakes.  

 

Under a subtitle of "Birds", Phillips wrote:

 

"Small rookeries of the green heron were found on islands 1 and 2 in Boone
Lake

and island 10 of Watauga Lake."  The following are portions of his published
maps

and a brief description of the islands:

 

Boone Lake Green Heron Colony Map October 1970.jpg

 

Islands 1 and 2 are shown in the above map at the right.  The label for
highway 11W, 

shown to the left, is in error.

He described island 1 and 2 as Hodge Island complex in Boone Lake at 9 acres
in size.

 

Watauga Lake Green Heron Rookery October 1970.jpg

 

Island 10 is shown at the left of this portion of Watauga Lake in Carter
County, TN near US 321 highway.

He describes island 10 as an unnamed island in Watauga Lake located on the
west side of Shook Branch

at 9 acres in size.

 

He states that the Boone Lake islands "are nearly adjoining" and had a total
of nine green heron nests.

The nest were said to be simply constructed of dead twigs and formed a crude
platform for eggs and

young.  Most of the nests were 3 to 5 meters above the ground.  He notes
that the Watauga Lake rookery

had five nests that were known to be active in 1968.

 

He went on to discuss details of nesting effort and survival of offspring
and nesting success.  He wrote

that seven of the nine nesting attemps on Boone Lake were apparently
successful.  He noted that all

five nests on island 10 (Watauga Lake) were believed to be successful.  He
judged success based on extensive whitewash found beneath each nest which
indicated occupation by young.

 

Most of the paper deals with mammals on the islands and much details about
sampling and species.

 

There is no evidence that Phillips made an effort to research the literature
for Green Heron rookeries

in the region or Northeast Tennessee.

 

In the December 1966 issue of THE MIGRANT, I published a paper COLONIAL
NESTING OF THE GREEN

HERON-A fairly large nesting colony of Green Herons (Butorides viresccas)
was located in May 1966 

along the river just below South Holston Dam in Sullivan County, Tennessee.
A total of ten active nests 

was observed and possibly a few others had been active but were discovered
too late to determine their

status for the season.  It was visited by myself and Charles R. Smith, an
undergraduate

student at ETSU when the South Holston rookery was visited.  He went to
Cornell University to study

under Dr. Richmond.  He was a PhD graduate student at Cornell when the
Phillips paper was published.

Evidently these nests flew under the academic radar during that time.

 

The only other rookey known in Northeast Tennessee until the present (20
October 2014) was a

colony of 6 to 9 nests in the Painter Creek Embayment of South Holston Lake
along TN Rt. 44 during

the period 2001-2006 (found by Coffey) and seen by many area birders.

 

Including the rookeries published by Phillips, we now have Green Heron
rookery records for Carter, Sullivan and Washington counties of Northeast
Tennessee.

 

Wallace Coffey

Bristol, TN
[Bristol-Birds] historical Green Heron rookeries for Carter and Washington Co., TN

Other related posts:
