First a PSA: the Big Sandy Breeding Bird Survey route in Benton County is still unassigned and has not been run since 2005 (making 5 consecutive missed years). Would some qualified observer PLEASE adopt this orphan route so I don't have too??? Please contact Keith Pardieck (kpardieck@xxxxxxxx) AND Chuck Nicholson (email address in the TN-birds message just above this one) ASAP to take this route on! Only 4 weekends remain in the 2011 BBS season.
I ran BBS route #3 of my 4 on Tuesday, 5/31/2011 -- Campbellsville, in the wilds of Giles County. Giles, by the way, is one of middle Tennessee's most underbirded counties. It is a mix of southern Highland Rim barrens-hills-n-hollers, and outer Nashville Basin knobs and valleys. I totaled 65 species for the morning, with no new additions to the all-time route list. I had a few record high counts: 53 Tufted Titmice, 10 Northern Parulas, 4 Louisiana Waterthrushes, 15 Summer Tanagers, 14 Eastern Towhees, and 77 Northern Cardinals. I also had a single Dickcissel, the first on the route since 1997. It seems to be a good year for this species in middle Tennessee. Notably absent were Purple Martins and Cedar Waxwings.
What always interests me on this route is the transitional nature of the geography, being in a place where the physiographic provinces are rather indefinite and dissolving in to each other. My warbler total was 7 species, which is low for the Highland Rim but high for the southern Basin. With a lot of warblers present in 1's and 2's it's always a bit of a lottery to see which ones will actually get found in any given year.
About Cicadas -- almost ubiquitous, but not in the huge numbers I had on Wrigley. Noted on 35 stops, with both M. tredecassini and M. tredecim widespread. Numbers thinned out towards the southern end of the route near Minor Hill, close to the Alabama border.
Bill Pulliam
Hohenwald TN
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