3 Black Terns were seen Sunday morning flying overhead on the pond side of the peninsula beyond the tipple. Leigh & I both locked our glasses on the closest one to us. It was in transition, between breeding & non-breeding plumage (Sibley?s verifies August as the time for which this occurs). Some smaller terns were also seen amongst this group & were most likely Least Terns, but we focused on the life birds (thanks to all for posting about the Black Terns @ Rankin Bottoms, & James Brooks excellent write-up on the TOS website). We ran into some folks from Waynesville, NC who were loading up their canoes. They had seen a group of 30 Black Terns on the mud flats earlier that morning along w/ various plovers & sandpipers. Also seen on the pond side, was a bird we tried our best to make an American Bittern. Turns out it was a juvenile Black-crowned Night Heron (we saw 2 adults nearby soon thereafter). A very odd sight was seeing an Eastern Kingbird swoop down on this juvenile b-c night heron, when it was perched on a limb. The juvie ducked its head on 3 occasions to avoid the wrath of the tyrant flycatcher (in Massachusetts this past July, we saw E. Kingbirds chase/ dive bomb Least Terns). The Eastern Kingbirds were everywhere you turned (at least 50), along with Green Herons (we counted 37). A dozen Great Egrets worked a 50 yd. stretch on the far side of the French Broad River near the RR bridge. Lots of Great Blue Herons around as well. Probably 100 or so shore birds were on the mud flats, but were a little to far away for us to definitively ID w/ our scope. Also seen: 2 greater yellowlegs, 3 blue gray gnatcatchers, 1 female summer tanager. Robert & Leigh Loveday Knoxville, TN __________________________________________________ Do You Yahoo!? HotJobs - Search Thousands of New Jobs http://www.hotjobs.com =================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 =========================================================