Andy Jones, one of our birders who is in graduate school at the University of Minnesota, wrote tonight to inform me that NBC news has again sechedule to run a news report on the northern owl invasion they are experiencing. Sharon Stiteler got a call "from Stephanie at NBC Nightly News, the Minnesota owl segment with me [Sharon Stiteler], Carrol Henderson and Jim Lind will probably air Tuesday night February 9 between 5:30pm - 6pm. It supposed to be the final segment to finish on a happy note. Because of this, if something super exciting happens in the news, it could get bumped." The 5:30 p.m. to 6 p.m. is Central Time so it would be 6:30 to 7 p.m. Eastern Time. The news feature had been recently scheduled when NBC was doing special reports from Minnesota but it got bumped. The owl invasion is beyond imagination. Andy is from Kingsport in Northeast Tennessee. He has been active with the Bristol Bird Club and the Knoxville Chapter TOS while he was in undegraduate school at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. On the weekend of Jan. 29-30-31 Andy had an simply amazing birding weekend. Brett Benz, Muir Eaton, and Mark Robbins from Kansas joined Andy and Brian Barber. On Sunday, Jan. 31, they started before dawn in Duluth and drove west into Aitkin County, then around noon went southeast to Pine County. After 7.5 hours they had found 226 Great Gray Owls!!! They also found 9 N Hawk Owls, 1 Boreal Owl (total of 5 owl species for the weekend). Andy went on to write: More on those Great Gray Owls - we began seeing Great Grays along Hwy 210 east of McGregor in Aitkin County as soon as it was light enough to see. 37 had been seen by 8am moving west on 210 63 by the time we hit Palisade at 8:40 84 by 10:30 after going south on 169 and then Co 3 115 by 11:15 going south on 65 150 by 11:55 - very large concentrations along 65 south of McGregor 155 by 12:00 226 total seen by 4pm, with 71 in Pine Co and 155 in Aitkin Note also that we found three dead Great Grays - one roadkill in Aitkin Co and two shot with high-powered rifles near Sandstone. We didn't set out to break any records on the Great Grays, we just wanted to get into the areas of high concentration and see the spectacle. But by 9am we knew that we had an incredible day ahead of us and pushed ahead all day, with all 5 pairs of eyes constantly searching for the birds. The day was overcast and windless, so the birds were active all day. We averaged over 1 owl per mile, including some stretches with about ten birds in a mile. Maybe those of us down this way will get to enjoy a little of the excitement Andy and others have been thrilled with if NBC news airs the feature this week. Let's go birding..... Wallace Coffey Bristol, TN =================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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================