An AMERICAN WHITE PELICAN has joined the one residing this past week at
Rankin Bottoms in Cocke County. The new guy still has a pristine white
belly, a gray cap, and dusky gray on the wings. The other has the mud-brown
belly. Both were visible from the tipple road.
Douglas Lake is being drained rapidly. It was at 985 today, and will be
down to 983.2 by midnight Sunday. Several acres of mudflat were visible
from the road today. We saw a few dozen shorebirds there, and even more at
the lower end of the mudflats on the Nolichucky River (viewable only from
the water).
Two heavily camoflaged boatloads of goosehunters with a long string of
decoys waited for over 2 hours for some geese to blow out of the sky. They
gave up after sunset and headed downriver. Five minutes later, the first
squadron of Canadas came honking in, soon followed by another. A third
flock was arriving as we left. Final score: Geese - 83, Hunters - 0.
Other notable birds:
Snowy egret (3)
Little blue heron (5)
Black-crowned night-heron (20+; 16 exploded from a willow grove as we
approached)
Semipalmated plover (6)
Sanderling (6)
Semipalmated sandpiper
Western sandpiper
Least sandpiper (50+)
Pectoral sandpiper (19)
Stilt sandpiper (2)
also many great egrets, killdeer, & great blue herons,a few swallows, green
herons, belted kingfishers, and 2 ospreys
Michael Sledjeski & Leslie Gibbens Cocke County TN
=================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER=====================
Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN
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Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society
web site at http://www.tnbirds.org
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Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp
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