Oct. 18, 2002 Black Bayou Area Reelfoot Lake, Lake Co. TN Three times is a charm and I arrived late on Friday afternoon to view the rice harvest in progress north of the refuge property. Viewing has been difficult on the two previous trips except for one exceptional area where the Black Rail made an appearance. Friday, I could position myself at the ends of the harvesting where the machines were turning and the viewing was great but the fields were relatively dry. Finally they hit a large wet area on my end and the wet tires, whet my appetite. Soras bailed out right and left and the 2 combines were following each other closely so the rails had to fly long distances. A Virginia had no place to go and landed right in front of me in a harvested corn field and soon a second flew down the long edge of the field giving great looks at the shorter rounded wings and long bill. A few immature Sora got my hopes up as they flashed their buff color and paler secondaries but not too long after a smaller buff bird flew out and the white squares on the wings flashed. Totals Rails on three trips: Sora - 115, Virginia - 2, Yellow - 1, BLACK - 1 Thanks, Uncle Ben!! Good Birding!!! Jeff R. Wilson OL' COOT / TLBA Bartlett Tenn. =================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. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================