Two Statebirds at Rankin Bottoms, TN, September 19, 2021

Douglas Lake is a TVA reservoir on the French Broad River in eastern TN.  Falling water levels in summer and fall can expose mudflats at the upstream portion of the lake called Rankin Bottoms, making it a well-known shorebird hotspot.  But that only occurs when water levels are just right – too high and there’s no mud; too low and there’s way too much mud and the best habitat is too far away for IDs.  I’m pretty sure I birded there many years ago, in fact decades ago, during my travels in eastern TN.  But my memory of the site is fuzzy at best.

Early in the summer 2021 shorebird season water levels at Rankin Bottoms were too high and shorebirds were limited.  Interestingly, this was principally caused by flooding rains near where I live in the western NC mountains near the headwaters of the French Broad.  But then by September water levels must have dropped because on 9/15 I got an eBird TN Needs Alerts featuring Buff-breasted Sandpipers at Rankin Bottoms.  Birders were finding a dozen or more species of shorebirds there, including Wilson’s Phalarope, Golden-Plovers, and Sanderlings.  Not to mention White Pelican, Laughing Gulls, and Caspian, Black, and Forster’s Terns.  Although all of these are inland rarities, only the Buff-breasted would be new for my TN state list.  You see years ago I had many business trips to Memphis, TN and I frequently birded at Ensley Bottoms with local birding legend Jeff Wilson.  That spot is the sewage treatment facility for the city of Memphis and I accumulated a large list of shorebirds and waterbirds there over the years.  But never a Buff-breasted Sandpiper. 

Then on the 16th 2 Avocets were reported at Rankin Bottoms – another potential TN statebird for me.  That was enough to push me into planning a trip to eastern TN.  I reached out to my birding buddy Bill Hooker to see if he might want to come along.  It turns out that Bill had been to Rankin Bottoms earlier in the season and as a result knew the site quite well.  And since shorebirding wasn’t too fruitful on his earlier trip, he was game for going along with me for another try.

As our planned trip on the 19th neared, the Needs Alerts gave us some good news and some bad news.  First the bad news – the Avocets were one-day-wonders.  Then the good news – the Buffies continued with as many as 3 reported.  And more good news – a number of passerine migrants were also being seen there, including several Cape May Warblers which was another possible statebird.  It turns out that a long peninsula sticking into the reservoir is nicely vegetated in brush and trees and can be quite a migrant magnet.  Now with 2 statebird targets I was all set for another trip into eastern TN.

We were on the road shortly after 6 and soon had our first good bird of the day – a Barred Owl flew over the highway as we were heading north from Asheville.  A new bird for my Buncombe County list.  Was that an omen for what was to come?

A couple hours later we were pulling into Rankin Bottoms and got our first look at the mudflats – there were many, many acres of possible shorebird habitat.  Were the birds going to be too far to identify?  We stopped at the first overlook where the road crosses the railroad tracks, the spot where most of the shorebirds were reported, and did a quick binocular scan.  There were scattered small shorebirds in the distance, some several hundred yards out.  This was going to be difficult.  Then I noticed some closer birds – it was a small group of Sanderlings.  Now it was time for scanning of the more distant sections of the mudflats.  Eventually I was picking up the continuing Wilson’s Phalarope and 2 Golden-Plovers far in the distance.  But despite lots of effort I had no luck with my key target – the Buff-breasted Sandpipers.

With each of our scans we picked up additional shorebirds well in the distance, but many were too far to confirm the IDs.  And complicating the issue was that we were looking off to the east into the morning sun.  I worried that even if a Buff-breasted was still around it might be too far away.  As examples of what we were dealing with, Bill took numerous highly magnified pictures of birds on the flats, and here are his best pictures of a Golden-Plover and the Phalarope.

We talked about moving on to other overlooks to see if we could find the Buffies elsewhere but decided to continue to scan from the railroad track spot a bit longer since that’s where they had been reported.  And I’m glad we did, because with another scan of the distant flats I picked up a mid-sized shorebird that was walking in a more upright manner.  I focused on this bird and eventually could see that it had a brown chest and scaly back – I had a Buff-breasted Sandpiper!  That sure was difficult.

My statebird map for this species is inserted below – states where I’ve seen it in its regular range are in blue, cross-hatched states are those where I still need it in its normal range, and the numerous eastern brown states are where I’ve seen it as a rarity.  I put TN in the Buff-breasted’s regular range as the western edge of the state is within its normal migration route.  Though it’s certainly a rarity this far east in the state.

Now that we finally had our key target we moved on to the north a bit to check out the flats from other overlooks.  We eventually added a few more shorebird species, giving us 12 species for the morning, including finding a rare Knot (but still not a new statebird for me). 

Later we found a spit that had a small flock of Ring-billed Gulls, and with a closer look found 2 immature Laughing Gulls mixed in.  We were also able to find the continuing Black Tern, and discovered a nice breeding plumage Common Tern.  Here are 2 more of Bill’s photos – a shot of the spit in the distance and a close-up of the Black Tern.

Next we turned our attention to the landbird migrants.  We started walking north along the peninsula through the brushy woods and soon ran into a few Yellow Warblers and Redstarts.  A bit farther along I got a brief glimpse of a warbler showing considerable yellow below with streaking.  Eventually I got good looks at the target Cape May Warbler.  Nice to be able to color in TN in my statebird map, though I still need it as a regular migrant in quite a number of eastern and central states

We eventually saw a second Cape May, and ended up with 7 warbler species in total.  Not bad for a hotspot known for its shorebirds.

As we walked back to the car we checked out the mudflats one more time and realized the total number of shorebirds had diminished significantly.  Looks like we got to Rankin Bottoms just in time.

With the addition of the Buff-breasted Sandpiper and Cape May Warbler that brings my TN statelist to 246.  Nice to be able to continue to add a few statebirds in this neighboring state.