June 15, 2006 I've read the House Wren posts with interest and thought I'd share a few thoughts. Not surprisingly, since the House Wren invasion in Tennessee started in the northeastern part of the state in the early to mid-1900's, the species is fairly common to common in Greene County. I live about 2.5 miles from where I work in Greeneville and count about a half dozen to ten House Wrens every day in spring and early summer while I'm going to and from work. On April 24 this year, I found 41 in and around Greeneville in only about 2.5 hours' time. I had numerous obligations that day that prevented me from further birding, but I believe that I could easily have topped 75 without much strain. I've also noticed that House Wrens are easy to find in Washington County (no surprise, here, of course), but when I've traveled southwest into Cocke, Jefferson, Knox, and other counties, I've had a harder time finding them. There appears to be a gradient of occurrence as one moves southward and westward from northeast Tennessee, with declining numbers as one moves farther away from the northeastern tip of the state. Nicholson's Atlas of the Breeding Birds of Tennessee suggests that this is the case, as does Robinson's An Annotated Checklist of the Birds of Tennessee. The situation with House Wrens is a good opportunity for birders around the state to gather data and examine how patterns of occurrence are changing over time. Don Miller Greeneville, Greene Co., 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 _____________________________________________________________