12/31/04 Garrett Lake Weakley Co. After a good tip from David Pitts that there were some Swans present (probably Mute's) on Garrett Lake in Weakley Co, I got a little time this afternoon to run over and check it out. When David was there yesterday morning most of the lake was still frozen over, and the birds were distant. As I arrived, I saw a couple of Swans on lake, and sure enough they were Mute's. Initially I only saw 3 birds, but most of the lake was hidden from my vantage point. There are only two access points on Garrett Lake (a fair size lake, over mile and half north to south), but from the one on the west side of the lake you can see most of the water. A quick trip around the lake revealed a total of 8 Mute Swans present. Six were remaining together, and 2 more were feeding separately. The group of 6 consists of 2 adults and what I think are 4, 1st-winter birds. Two of the birds are still dingy with darkish bills, obviously this-years hatch. The other two are basically white, with fairly bright pink bills that lack the knob of the adults. The 2 separate birds were too far to be certain, but appeared to be adults. I had great looks at the group of 6 as they cruised by the launch area while transiting the lake. A real treat was having one of the birds fly from one end of the lake to other. I was looking through the scope when I started hearing what almost sounded like a helicopter spooling up (whoomp.....whooomp......whooomp......whoooomp), I looked up to see one of the birds coming from the other end of the lake. The sound of those wingbeats was most impressive. This was my 1st time to see a Mute Swan in the air. I have only had one other Mute in the state that I was confident was wild, many years ago at Cross Creeks NWR. This was also during very bad winter weather. I've seen other Mute's that very well could have been wild birds. I talked to a couple of people that fish Lake Garrett regularly, that said the birds weren't there a couple of weeks ago. They seem to have come in with the bitter weather of late. I've posted a few shots of these birds on my site, if interested just follow the link and click on "next" to go to the next photo, a total of 4 shots are posted. http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/image/38107295 Good birding!! Mike Todd McKenzie, TN Carroll Co. birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx www.pbase.com/mctodd =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------- 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================