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birds at Ft Loudon Dam
Dec. 3rd, 2005 01:14 pmI birded this morning with folks from the KTOS. We started at 8 a.m. Frickin' cold and overcast. It snowed briefly about 15 minutes in, then later there was persistent rain. Not a whole lot of birds, but I did add five to my life-list: killdeer, winter wren, great blue heron, horned grebe, and Bonaparte's gull.
We started from the parking lot between the Tellico reservoir and Ft Loudon Lake. We cut through a field and saw some black vultures flying about and on a TVA pole. We saw a Kestrel flying hither and thither and alighting briefly on the wire. Such movement is a bit unusual for the kestrel, especially so early. In the grass on a little peninsula were two killdeer. I also saw a killdeer in the parking lot of Burger King earlier that day, and when I left there were two in the road. We walked down a service road and crossed a highway, then walked along the old ferry road. There's a pond made from leakage from the dam and another beaver pond. We looked at the pond first from a hill and saw a flock of Mallards. Others saw a gadwall and a wood duck, but I didn't. I did see 2 GBH's take off. They have powerful wings. We walked down by the pond--they ducks were gone by then, of course. I saw a winter wren. Its coloring made it look more western than eastern, but I'm not sure. We got up close and personal views of the black vultures. They must've been about 20 feet away, not scared of us or anything. I could all the detail on their faces. We continues down the ferry road. Some people reported kinglets but I didn't bother to look. I could hear white-throated sparrows. Down at the river, there was a kingfisher riding on a buoy. I don't know how they recognized it so quickly from so far away. Through my bins, I could barely tell. I got a good view through the scope. On the shore near a bend in the river we saw two great blue herons, wading. A flock of seagulls flew overhead, and Dan said they were Bonaparte's. You can't really tell by color when they fly overhead, but their wingspan averages 3 ft whereas the ring-billed gull's averages 4. Coming back, we stopped at a dam road and got a good look through a scope at a pied-billed grebe. We also saw a pack of Mallards way off with some smaller birds in their midst; they say they were horned grebes, but frankly not everyone was sure. I'm going to count them anyway.
By then it was raining pretty steadily and I was tired, so I called it a day. A few people went over to the overlook.
When I got home today, I had a birthday gift waiting for me, and it was a bird book! Perfect timing.
We started from the parking lot between the Tellico reservoir and Ft Loudon Lake. We cut through a field and saw some black vultures flying about and on a TVA pole. We saw a Kestrel flying hither and thither and alighting briefly on the wire. Such movement is a bit unusual for the kestrel, especially so early. In the grass on a little peninsula were two killdeer. I also saw a killdeer in the parking lot of Burger King earlier that day, and when I left there were two in the road. We walked down a service road and crossed a highway, then walked along the old ferry road. There's a pond made from leakage from the dam and another beaver pond. We looked at the pond first from a hill and saw a flock of Mallards. Others saw a gadwall and a wood duck, but I didn't. I did see 2 GBH's take off. They have powerful wings. We walked down by the pond--they ducks were gone by then, of course. I saw a winter wren. Its coloring made it look more western than eastern, but I'm not sure. We got up close and personal views of the black vultures. They must've been about 20 feet away, not scared of us or anything. I could all the detail on their faces. We continues down the ferry road. Some people reported kinglets but I didn't bother to look. I could hear white-throated sparrows. Down at the river, there was a kingfisher riding on a buoy. I don't know how they recognized it so quickly from so far away. Through my bins, I could barely tell. I got a good view through the scope. On the shore near a bend in the river we saw two great blue herons, wading. A flock of seagulls flew overhead, and Dan said they were Bonaparte's. You can't really tell by color when they fly overhead, but their wingspan averages 3 ft whereas the ring-billed gull's averages 4. Coming back, we stopped at a dam road and got a good look through a scope at a pied-billed grebe. We also saw a pack of Mallards way off with some smaller birds in their midst; they say they were horned grebes, but frankly not everyone was sure. I'm going to count them anyway.
By then it was raining pretty steadily and I was tired, so I called it a day. A few people went over to the overlook.
When I got home today, I had a birthday gift waiting for me, and it was a bird book! Perfect timing.