9 Sept. 2004 Musick's Campground South Holston Lake Sullivan County, TN The Sooty Tern was back at Musick's Campground, South Holston Lake, this afternoon and left nothing to the imgaination. It flew past the campground maybe a dozen times in a three and one-half hour period. 4:30 p.m. -- The large tern apporached from the southeast (left) and flew over the main channel, pausing to turn in wide circles which revealed the necessary tell-tell field markings. John Shumate and Wallace Coffey had spotting scope and got great looks at the Sooty with excellent lighting and the intense brightness from over our shoulder. Howard Langridge was present. The bird flew off into Washington County, VA establishing a new species record for Southwest Virginia. 6:30 p.m. -- Shumate departed at 6:20 p.m. and Coffey was alone when the Sooty returned, flying down the lake on the far side and passing out of sight around the bend. Coffey got a good study on it at some distance. 6:44 p.m. -- Mike Poe arrives and we continue to bird. He sets up his 1200 mm magnification, long, telescopice camera lens with a mounted digital camera. 6:56 p.m -- Rack and Sammy Cross arrive to bird for the remainder of the evening. 7:10 p.m. -- The Sooty returns, flying back up the lake and everyone gets a long study. The bird remains in the area for 34 minutes without leaving -- constantly flying past Musick's Campground and into Virginia and back. It continued on the wing until last seen at 7:54 p.m. It dove to near the surface of the water several times. Sometimes it flew high. Mike Poe took approximately 6 digital photos with his telephoto lens under various lighting conditions at varying distances. The bird showed the black wings above, black nape, mantle, rump and tail. It had a distinctive forked tail and the streamer tail feathers revealed white. There was no dark spur on he side of the neck and breast as seen in a Black Tern. The loral stripe at the eye was distinctive as it divided the black upper head from the white below. The underside of the wings were white coverts with the primaries and secondaries being dark, giving a two tone effect to the underwing. A slight white leading edge could be seen on the front of the wing. It flew with a strong wing stroke and ranged over a considerable area. 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================