[TN-Bird] Little River canoe trip

From: Rikki Hall <rikki@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2007 15:51:32 -0400
On Saturday, June 2, some friends and I took a leisurely canoe ride down 
the Little River in eastern Blount County, from Davis Ford to the 
Wildwood Rd bridge. The birding was excellent, 42 species for the trip, 
with the highlight being the colony of CLIFF SWALLOWS under the U.S. 411 
bridge. There were at least two dozen nests on the bridge, including a 
row of about ten butting up against each other on the north side. The 
Wildwood bridge had a smaller cliff swallow colony with a few BARN 
SWALLOW nests mixed in. There was also one structure that I believe was 
an EASTERN PHOEBE nest atop an old barn swallow nest with a few year's 
worth of mud dauber tubes underneath. The whole thing was about three 
feet tall. I could see a head and tail on the upper nest, and it 
appeared to include plant matter, so I think it was a phoebe.

There was a TREE SWALLOW flying over the water at one point, but somehow 
we missed northern rough-wings. An Empidonax flycatcher was calling 
persistently from a tree, but I couldn't spot it as we floated by. It 
was definitely not an Acadian, and it wasn't buzzy/sneezy enough for a 
willow, so I think it was a LEAST FLYCATCHER.

A large, yellow mayfly was hatching that day, and as one would rise from 
the water, it was just a matter of time before something, usually a 
CEDAR WAXWING, swooped in and gobbled it up. Waxwings, COMMON GRACKLES 
and INDIGO BUNTINGS were omnipresent, and we always seemed to be scaring 
off a GREAT BLUE HERON as we rounded each bend. The grackles were 
walking along roots near the water line as though they were 
waterthrushes, and a few seemed to have nesting material in their beaks. 
I actually did see one LOUISIANA WATERTHRUSH and two SPOTTED SANDPIPERS.

We saw two clans of CANADA GEESE, 9 birds in one and 21 in the other, 
with young that were about half grown, but still downy. There were a few 
WOOD DUCK flyovers and one pair of small, wild MALLARD on the water.

Complete list is below.

Rikki Hall
Rockford, TN
Blount County



Wood duck
Mallard
Canada goose
Green heron
Great blue heron
Killdeer
Spotted sandpiper
Mourning dove
Yellow-billed cuckoo
Belted kingfisher
Red-bellied woodpecker
Northern flicker
Hairy woodpecker
Pileated woodpecker
Tree swallow
Cliff swallow
Barn swallow
Eastern phoebe
Blue jay
Least flycatcher
Great-crested flycatcher
Tufted titmouse
Carolina chickadee
Carolina wren
Eastern bluebird
Wood thrush
American robin
Brown thrasher
Northern mockingbird
Cedar waxwing
Common grackle
Red-eyed vireo
Louisiana waterthrush
Common yellowthroat
Northern cardinal
Indigo bunting
Song sparrow
Field sparrow
Eastern meadowlark
Red-winged blackbird
Scarlet tanager
American goldfinch
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[TN-Bird] Little River canoe trip

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