As Dean mentioned in his posting from Sunday, I was at Cherokee Dam (Jefferson County) on both Saturday and Sunday. Spent about 2 hours Saturday (3 to 5 pm) mostly at the Overlook. I'm not sure I saw more waterfowl than we saw Sunday though there was a large raft of a few hundred American Coots and a pair of White-Winged Scoters several hundred feet from the Coots. An adult male and one with two white spots on its face (so, a female or an immature?). The male just had a little white visible near its eye. They were alone together. They weren't diving, just drifting/swimming around and eventually out of sight. I've never seen a scoter before but the shape of the head & bill and those two white spots on the one clinched it for me. Other waterfowl Saturday included redheads, horned and pied billed grebes, and a common loon. Sunday I got there earlier, just a couple of minutes before Dean pulled up around 1 p.m As he stated, I eventually went to Mossy Creek WMA where the only waterfowl were Mallards. Driving down Bethel Church Road on my way there I stopped to scan a mixed flock of several hundred, if not thousand, black birds in a field. Scanned for about a minute from my car before they flew away. All I detected in that brief period were lots of starlings and red-wings with some grackles and cowbirds mixed in. Returning to the overlook at Cherokee Dam a little after 3 pm there were 3 Common Loons in very close proximity, just below the overlook. Two slowly swam away but one remained and I got the most fantastic close-up looks. I was thrilled. I've got a thing about loons...probably the reason I drove to the dam in the first place after reading Dean's post from the previous week. Haven't seen all that many and these were the closest under the best viewing conditions. Worth the price of admission (a tank of gas). In addition to the group of 11 redheads I found another one (a male) asleep in the midst of 29 American Coots. Dean mentioned an errant decoy. Well, I saw another one both Saturday and on my second trip to the overlook Sunday. A whirling winged mechanical Mallard. Weird. Carole Gobert, Knoxville, TN _________________________________________________________________ Share life as it happens with the new Windows Live.Download today it's FREE! http://www.windowslive.com/share.html?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_Wave2_sharelife_112007 =================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 _____________________________________________________________