[TN-Bird] Anderson County Adventures - Part 1

From: Carole Gobert <cpgobert@xxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Tennessee Bird List <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 19 Oct 2009 19:43:47 -0400
Norris Dam Songbird Trail (Anderson County) was delightful today, October 19.  
I arrived at the head of the Songbird Trail at the bright and early hour of 
11:20 a.m. and from the car heard the call of a Red-Shouldered Hawk.  I grabbed 
my binoculars and found not one, but two overhead.  They flew off.  A short 
time later as I walked along the trail I heard a commotion of chickadees in the 
trees.  I got two glimpses of a large bird flying near the ground and finally 
got a slightly better look at it... a hawk.  A bit farther along the trail a 
buteo flew over the trail; an immature red-shouldered.  I decided to walk down 
the path by the river (not the one that goes from the parking lot to the stairs 
but a short one farther on that eventually dead ends) and flushed the immature 
red-shoulder which flew up from the path with something in its talons and 
landed on a nearby branch a little farther along where it proceeded to tear 
apart and devour its prey (couldn't tell what it was).  I approached closer a 
few steps at a time.  By now I've gotten my camera out and am photographing it. 
 But the sun is in the wrong position.  Eventually I simply walk past the tree 
to the end of the trail which is just a few feet beyond the hawk; I turn around 
and am surprised that it's still there.  While I watched it finished its meal 
and sat there looking around for about 5 minutes.  By now I had changed my film 
and took some more photos, now with the sun behind me.  I was so close to the 
bird that I noticed something peculiar.  It had a narrow pink worm-like band 
that started at its mouth, went under its chin and up the other side.  All I 
could think of was that a part of its prey (an intestine?) had gotten wrapped 
around its mouth.  It doesn't show up on the first roll of film but when I get 
the second, closer roll developed it probably will.  (time to go digital?) The 
hawk eventually left but I saw it again just before I reached the bridge above 
the weir when it flew across the path and into the trees.

 

Other interesting birds were:

 

Red-tailed Hawk  (2)

Kestrel

Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker

Ruby Crowned Kinglet 2+

Palm Warbler

Yellow-Rumped Warbler 5+

Indigo Bunting (a female)

 

Carole Gobert, Knoxville, Knox County, TN
                                          
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[TN-Bird] Anderson County Adventures - Part 1

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