Hi Folks,I am writing this email at the Knoxville Airport while waiting to
board my flight home to Los Angeles.The info below will be more useful for
other Tennessee non-natives.After the final exam, this afternoon, I dropped off
my boss at the airport, then realized that I had hours of free time before my
flight, so I zipped over to Great Smoky Mountains National Park. While driving
through the park, I noticed the same thing as when I drove through Frozen Head
state park couple of days ago. There are obvious parking lots, or visitor
centers, where you park car and then walk around. You have to find a spot on
the side of the road, park your car, and just randomly find a trail deep into
the forest. The other thing I noticed (at both places) is that for the first
part of the hike is that the birds are completely silent, or non existent for
the first mile or so while you walk these roads. It appears that the birds
avoid the car traffic, and only live deep inside the forest. I walked long the
lush, green, dark forest trail, next to a stream(there are streams everywhere
in this park), literally not seeing or hearing birds, getting more and more
annoyed, until I was around one mile uphill. Suddenly, I hit a large mixed
feeding flock of Red eyed Vireos, Tufted Titmice, Black throated Green
Warblers, Northern Parulas, a Warbling Vireo, Blue headed Vireos, Cardinals,
Blue gray Gnatcatchers, a Red bellied Woodpecker and a Carolina Wren.A Broad
winged Hawk circled overhead, while an uncooperative Catharus thrush gave
partial calls.Of course, I had left my camera in the trunk of the car, because
(obviously) it was too dark in the forest to take photos. Out of desperation I
took photos by holding my cell phone up to my binoculars. The amazing thing was
this was the only part of the entire forest that had birds. I walked off in
both directions, and realized that I needed to go back, and just stand at this
1 spot and let all of them come and visit me.I need to come back to your state,
and walk around in your forests at 8 o'clock in the morning( I will never be
able to do that when I am taking classes with the nuclear regulatory
commission- they are the ones who keep sending me here). If I could do that, I
would see tons of birds.Tom
Thomas Geza Miko653 S. Indian Hill Blvd., #CClaremont CA 91711
Http://www.tgmiko.com
Personal cell 909.241.3300Work cell 213.471.6001Office 213.351.7382Home
909.445.1456
Sent from my Verizon Wireless 4G LTE smartphone
