Saturday, June 5, I returned to Tellico Dam in Loudon County in an attempt to re-locate the blackbird that I saw last Sunday that I reported as a female Brewer?s. At the time I didn?t realize how rare such a sighting would be and though at the time I posted about it I thought the bird looked just like the photo of the Brewer?s in my Stokes guide, I cannot now say for certain that it was a Brewer?s. It probably wasn?t. In any case, I was not surprisingly unable to find the bird again. The trip was not in vain, however, as I found lots of good birds on a very pleasant morning. I had barely started walking the paved trail from the parking lot toward the dam when I observed four kestrels in an open area with several power poles to the right of the trail. When first seen, two were on the wires and two on the cross bar of the telephone pole a couple hundred feet distant I assume it was a family group as they all clustered together at times The only two that I got good enough close-up looks at to determine the sex were both females. At one point a lone kestrel took out after a crow and chased it away. There were many, many cliff swallows and a somewhat lesser number of tree swallows. Field sparrows were playing ping pong just about everywhere and I both heard and saw eastern meadowlarks (didn?t remember hearing any last weekend). Had fly-bys by an osprey and a belted kingfisher, both heading for the open water. Carole Gobert Knox County, Tennessee =================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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================