July 11, 2002 Don Manning and myself began our day at 4:00 AM on what we had hoped would be a successful trip to Chattanooga for the Brown Pelican. Our day ended 19 hours and 850 miles later. We arrived at the Gold Point Marina in Chattanooga at 8:15 and before we had walked out to the last dock we saw the juv. Brown Pelican in flight in the distance. We watched the bird for the next 20 minutes or so as it flew around the area, but never saw it take a perch. The morning was very hazy, and I was only able to get one poor quality shot of the bird in flight from a long distance. We lost the bird in the haze as it flew, although we were sure it was still in the area, we weren't able to relocate it. As it was not yet 9:00, and we were in the East end of the state anyway, I talked Don into heading up to the Smokies for some year birds (and the fact that I haven't birded the Smokies in the last 3 years I've been back into birding). We arrived in the mountains at about 11:00 (central) and the mountain atmosphere was very refreshing, the crowd of course, wasn't. Our fist outing was the Alum Cave Bluff trail, where we saw the 1st of many Black-throated Blue Warblers, one of our targets for the trip, and always a treat for us west TN birders. Things were pretty quiet as expected, with the exception of Blue-headed Vireos which were singing everywhere. We journeyed on up the mountain and went a ways up the Newfound Gap trail. We knew we were a long way from west TN in July when the Juncos, Winter Wrens, and Veeries began singing. They were joined by the Rose-breasted Grosbeaks, Red-breasted Nuthatch, Black-capped Chickadees (target bird), and Black-throated Blue and Canada Warbler. On the way up to Clingman's Dome another target bird sailed over us, a Common Raven. Shortly after this the rain set in and we called our day quits at about 4:00 (central) without our last hoped for target bird, Red Crossbill. When we rolled into McKenzie at 11:00 PM we were glad we had gone, but also glad to be home. Good birding!!!!! Mike Todd McKenzie, TN Carroll Co. mikectodd@xxxxxx =================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 =========================================================