Upon checking the GBBC lists Monday afternoon it appeared to me that Knoxville's list of species was severely lacking in waterfowl. I decided to try to help out in that category by leaving work a bit early and going to the Turkey Creek wetland in west Knox County, Tennessee. Surely I could at least add a wood duck or gadwall to the list. I first went to the parking lot at Baptist Hospital and found 4 or 5 wood ducks. No sign of the pied billed grebe that was there a few weeks ago. Didn't stay long but drove to Earthfare, parked and at approx. 5:30 p.m.started walking along the paved walk toward Lovell Road (eastbound). I hadn't gone far when a bird flushed to my left, scurrying into the vegetation and out of sight. Its companion, however, froze. A Common Snipe. I think the one that fled was also probably a snipe but I'll never know. The one that stayed just stood there, up to its belly in water, not moving. It was maybe 12 feet from me. It didn't move while I dug out my field guide (thankfully I found one in the car for this unplanned excursion) and compared field marks. A perfect match. It stood there for at least 5 minutes before walking into the same vegetation the frirst one had. It was getting dark so there were birds I couldn't ID (good excuse) but here's my list for the slightly less than an hour I spent there: Wood Duck - 4 (all at Baptist) Gadwall - 8 Mallard - about 50 (28 at Baptist) Northern Shoveler - 2 American Coot - 2 Wilson's Snipe - 1 Belted Kingfisher - 1 Northern Flicker - 1 Carolina Chickadee - 4 Carolina Wren - 1 Golden-crowned Kinglet - 1 American Robin - 2 Northern Mockingbird - 1 Eastern Towhee - 1 Red-winged Blackbird - 30+ 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. You are also required to list the count in which the birds you report were seen. The actual date of observation should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ 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 _____________________________________________________________