As ridiculous as it sounds, I had a male COMMON MERGANSER fly over the yard this morning... and this wasn't the first time! On 22 April 2006, I had 2 male Common Mergansers flying over our yard in West Knox Co heading north along Black Oak Ridge about 20 ft above tree level. Today, (2 May 2008), a single male Common Merganser was spotted around 7:50AM making an almost identical track up the ridge, at about the same altitude. I had a brief view of the bird today. It was immediately clear that it was a merganser so I was able to focus on the head, neck and breast. From below, the bird had entirely white underparts (including the breast and flanks which rules out Red-breasted and the much smaller Hooded Mergansers) except for a small dark head and darker grey on the flight feathers and wing edges. The dark on the head was very limited and there was no dark marking on the neck or breast. Other features: long neck with small head, relatively long pointed wings, short tail (i.e., not like a cormorant). So I've now seen 4 Common Mergansers in Knox Co and 3 were flying over our yard (the other was also a male on Ft Loudon Lake across from the main UT campus in the late 1980s... don't have the exact date handy at the moment, it's in another set of records). Anyway, some other yard highlights this morning: E Wood-Pewee BLACKPOLL, 1 male, FOS American Redstart, 1 male "Myrtle" Yellow-rumped Warbler, about 5 Scarlet Tanager, at least 1 Baltimore Oriole, 1 male Dean Edwards Knoxville, TN =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------ Assistant Moderator Andy Jones Cleveland, OH ------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Dave Worley Rosedale, VA __________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ARCHIVES TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/ EXCELLENT MAP RESOURCES Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com _____________________________________________________________