[Bristol-Birds] male robin flocks grounded by snow showers
- From: "Wallace Coffey" <jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Bristol-birds" <bristol-birds@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 01:19:24 -0500
The leading edge of spring migration was grounded in Northeast Tennessee
Tuesday as countless large flocks of American Robins took time out to feed in
almost any open field and lawn.
Chris O'Bryan and I searched through one large flock after another in a driving
wind with on-again off-again snow showers all afternoon. As common for the
specie, silent males made up the early first wave. Only along Pemberton Road
in the Holston Valley area of Sullivan County was a single female found. Chris
picked it up near a barn as it ran under a fence into a pasture.
The males will continue their mass movement north with the females to soon
follow and the air will be full of robin songs. The breeding season will be
just days away and the constant combat and chasing among robins for territories
will have begun. Males, now peaceful with one another, will strike a new
demeanor.
But before that happens, the hundreds of robins we see everywhere will have
gone hundreds of miles north to their breeding grounds.
In eastern Sullivan County we had several great looks at Holston Mountain as
clouds poured snow showers down like waterfalls into the Flatwoods Road area
and to South Holston Lake. Where the showers were heaviest the mountain was in
a whiteout.
It was hard to believe spring is so close as Chris and I would first run the
window wipers to clear the snow flakes and then look back into a clearing sky
to watch the sun shine through. Moments later we were fast within winters grip
and fighting the wind.
Waiting on more spring.
Let's go birding.....
Wallace Coffey
Bristol, TN
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