[tn-bird] Hiwassee area Saturday

From: David Trently <dtrently@xxxxxxx>
To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Sun, 03 Feb 2002 07:29:23
On Saturday, Feb 2., my wife Mia and my brother Allan visited the Sandhill
Crane festival at Birchwood, TN, as well as the Hiwassee refuge. (The
refuge is near where the Hiwassee River empties into the Tennessee River,
in Meigs Co, north of Chattanooga)
Of course, we saw thousands of Sandhill Cranes. The most spectacular show
was in the morning (at least between 9 and 10 when I was outdoors most of
the time) when cranes were in almost every large field or flying overhead.
In mid-afternoon, there were fewer away from the refuge itself.

My first stop was to find the 2 HARRIS'S SPARROWs. I saw both of them on
the brush pile next to the pond in the low spot in the road, the road that
goes to the site where the ferry used to take cars across the river. (If
you're coming from rt 60, you would go to the left instead of making the
right turn that takes you onto the road to the refuge - if leaving from the
refuge, make a right turn out of the refuge road and then go straight at
the stop sign, instead of a left that would take you to rt 60)
While waiting for the Harris's to show up, I also saw WHITE-CROWNED, SONG
and SWAMP SPARROWs.

We returned in the afternoon and got great looks at one Harris's sitting on
top of a cedar tree, calling loudly. It eventually flew to some trees
farther from the road.

At the refuge, other than the cranes, the highlight was a pair of SNOW
GEESE that were blue phase, but with more white on the head and neck than
usually seen in blue geese. You'll see a similar picture of them in the
Sibley guide, at the bottom right of the page.

On the way out of the refuge, turning left to head toward rte 58, you soon
come to a pond on the left. This pond usually has a few ducks on it, but
they are often hard to see through the vegetation. Someone has cut much of
the plants and a good view of the pond is possible. We saw some GADWALL,
RING-NECKED DUCKs, AM WIGEON and a LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE.

David Trently,
Knoxville, TN
dtrently@xxxxxxx

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[tn-bird] Hiwassee area Saturday

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