[TN-Bird] long day afield in cumberland and bledsoe counties
- From: "Stephen Stedman" <SStedman@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 2 Jul 2006 16:55:04 -0500
Yesterday (1 July 2006) I met Joseph Mast near Mayland, Cumberland Co.,
to do some birding with him. We went first to Dorton Knob, located at
the southern end of Brady Mountain and just north of the northern end of
Sequatchie Valley, arriving there about 0600 CDT and spending 4.5 hours
searching the eastern and northeastern slopes for "high" elevation
birds. The knob reaches 2980 feet, but we had no birds of interest near
the actual top of the knob. Lower down (2500-2750 feet) we found 5
Veeries, 3 Chestnut-sided Warblers, 2 singing Ceruleans and one female
Cerulean. Best find was a briefly singing Canada Warber and what we
took to be an adult female Canada; we heard the male sing just once or
twice, but we had long (3-4 minutes) looks at the female, though she did
not provide us with any positive breeding evidence; this sighting was a
nice follow-up to the sighting of a singing male that Joseph found last
week at exactly the same spot where we had the two Canadas yesterday At
one point during our "mountain top mining" operation we heard a treetop
singer that to my ear seemed to sing a song that fell within the
envelope of variation charactertistic of Blackburnian Warbler, but it
stopped singing before we could get a look at it, so it had to go down
as one that got away; however, I think Blackburnian is highly likely to
be found at this site as a breeder in another year. Indeed, almost any
high elevation species found at Frozen Head State Park seems possible at
Dorton, too.
After 4.5 tiring hours of scouring the slopes of Dorton Knob, we went
south for a look at the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher nest on Ninemile
Crossroad in Bledsoe Co. Joseph obtained photos of an adult at the
nest; it was feeding young, but hard to say whether there was 1 or 2
young (or more), but at least one for certain. Since it was mid-day
when we got there, we did not spend much time so as not to disrupt the
birds much in the heat of the day. BTW, Janie Finch reported seeing a
butterfly being brought to the nest by one of the adults last Friday, so
the young hatched by that day at least.
After the quick reconaissance at Ninemile Rd. for the Scissor-tails, we
returned to Cumberland Co. where Joseph wanted to show me some ponds
where he had been seeing Willow Flycatchers; we did later see one Willow
at one of these ponds. However, when we stopped at the first of the
ponds, Joseph pointed to a very large field on the opposite side of the
road from the pond and said that it--and several other large fields
totaling more than 1500 acres--had been left fallow for several years.
I stepped over the fence and listened to the birdsong coming from this
nicely weedy field intently for a couple of minutes before we went to
the pond, but I heard little except Indigos; at one point I thought
perhaps I was hearing a Henslow's Sparrow, but it did not repeat and I
finally decided it was just an aural mirage brought on by the day's high
temperatures and my still being somewhat tired from the hours of
climbing up and down the slopes of Dorton Knob. After we inspected the
pond, however, I returned to the field edge and listened again, this
time immediately hearing a Henslow's Sparrow only 50 feet to my left,
another only 100 feet to my right, and still another about 200 feet out
into the field. We walked out into this field (Joseph knows many folks
associated with this farm and just about any other farm in the Mayland
area) about 250 feet and found ourselves surrounded by Henslow's
Sparrows, with 3 in sight within 100 feet and still another singing
within 100 feet (and the two singers near the fence line still audible
in the distance). Joseph obtained some photos of one of the singing
birds to document what I think might be a first county record. We drove
down the edge of the field another 500 feet or so and listened at the
field edge, hearing three more Henslow's Sparrows that did not duplicate
any of the other six. We then visited three more fields nearby, finding
four Henslow's Sparrows at each of two of these other fields. In all we
had 17 Henslow's, and we sampled (way) less than 5% of the available
field habitat.
Needless to say, we're going back to these fields soon and attempt to
get a better idea of how many Henslow's are in them; I think it may turn
out to be the largest breeding population of this species in Tennessee
this year (or any year), but time and more effort will tell.
BTW, Carol Williams has secured some nice photos of the Henslow's
Sparrow she and I found last week in DeKalb Co. She, Michael Hawkins,
and Judy Fuson report that there were at least five Henslow's yesterday
at that site, which, sadly, is scheduled to be mowed soon.
It's still hard to know exactly what to make of all the Henslow's
Sparrows that have shown up in Tennessee during most summers of the past
decade or so. It would seem most likely that they are expanding south
into Tennessee as breeders (but for what reason?); at any rare, I find
it hard to believe that everybody but Joe Howell (who found a singing
Henslow's near Oak Ridge in 1957) overlooked them until the mid-1990s,
but I suppose that could be the case.
Steve Stedman
Cookeville, TN
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