Most birders use eBird to catalog and document their sightings these days. And it has proven to be an excellent resource for me as I continue to pursue my statebirding efforts across the country. By far the Needs Alerts are the most valuable tool in the eBird arsenal – I review nearly a dozen county and state Needs Alerts each day.
Starting in late December my TN Needs Alert included reports
of an Eared Grebe at a hotspot named “South Holston Lake – Musick’s Campground”
in northeastern TN. The bird was first
spotted on the local Christmas Count on December 26, and was seen on each
subsequent report from that spot through January 11. That location is barely south of the TN/VA
stateline, and as a result the Grebe was sometimes also seen in VA waters. That gave me 2 potential statebird ticks to
target. Plus on the 9th a Lark Sparrow
was reported there “with a mixed Chipping Sparrow and Field Sparrow flock in
the pokeweed stalks behind the sign-in mailbox”. Seemed pretty specific. And since wintering Eared Grebes and Lark
Sparrows are often long-staying, I liked my chances.
That was more than enough to justify my 2 hour 15 minute
drive to the area. But then I started to
research potential targets I might need in VA.
And just a 20-minute drive from the campground was a spot called
Nicewonder Pond with a couple recent reports of multiple Turkeys. Wild Turkeys had become something of a
nemesis bird for me in VA, so I was excited to find a location where they might
actually be somewhat reliable. The pond
had quite a number of waterfowl as well, so I wondered if the waterfowl were
being fed, which in turn attracted the Turkeys.
Then the icing on the cake was a report of an Orange-crowned
Warbler on the 10th at a hotspot in Kingsport, TN. I’m not usually too optimistic about being
able to find a lingering warbler, but it was re-found on the 12th, along with a
comment that Orange-crowns “are seen regularly here during winter”. Sure enough there were quite a number of eBird
records in this area in the last several years.
That gave me 5 potential statebird ticks. If things went well, it could be quite a nice
trip.
The morning of the 13th I was out of the house pre-dawn and
approached the area of Musick’s Campground around 9 AM. The GPS coordinates of the hotspot were
perfect, taking me right to the gate, which unfortunately was locked. Complete with multiple “No Trespassing”
signs. The campground was obviously
closed for the winter with no one in sight to ask for access. I checked the area nearby thinking that I
would find another spot to access the lake below the campground. But each access point was gated with more “No
Trespassing” signs, some more ominous than others. I went to my iPhone and found a phone number
for the campground, but not surprisingly there was no answer.
None of this was mentioned in the eBird checklists, nor in
the hotspot itself. Then again, the Lark
Sparrow report mentioned a “sign-in mailbox” – did that mean you could somehow
enter the campground and once inside there was a location where you would sign
in? But the No Trespassing signs were very
obvious. Had I made the 2+ hour drive
for nothing? Just then a car came by and
the friendly driver stopped to ask if I was ok.
He lived nearby and had watched me wandering around and thought I had
car problems. I told him instead about
my access issues. He said he had a neighbor
whose yard had frontage on the lake.
That neighbor was out of town and I could just hike through the yard to
get to the lake. Boy was I lucky the
friendly resident was there to help out.
Within a couple minutes I was taking a short hike through the
neighbor’s yard and made my way down to the lake. I entered the lake bed just a short distance
north of Musick’s, and had a good view of the water. Now I just needed to find the Eared
Grebe. Most of the posts had mentioned
the bird was on the far side, so that was my initial focus. But with several scans I just found a few
Bonaparte’s and Ring-billed Gulls, 4 Common Loons, and 1 Red-breasted
Merganser. I changed my angle and looked
some more, finding a flock of Pied-billed Grebes, but nothing else new. Then again, I did have a distant flyby of 2
small waterfowl that might have been grebes.
I spent more than an hour scanning the lake both in TN and VA waters but
couldn’t come up with my target bird. As
it turns out the last time the Eared Grebe was seen was on the 11th. So not only had I struck out on the Grebe, I
also couldn’t get into the Campground to try for the Lark Sparrow, wherever it
was. A difficult start…
Next I was off to VA to try for Turkeys. The key stop was Nicewonder Pond on Virginia
Trail in Washington County. And since
almost all my route was in VA, I also kept an eye out for Turkeys feeding in
the fields the whole way there, but to no avail. Just as I turned onto Virginia Trail I came
upon a guard house at the entrance to a private community. The pond was on private property which was
not mentioned in the eBird reports. Not
again! I told the security guard that I
was trying to go birding at the pond, but he said he couldn’t let me in. But after a 10-minute discussion he relented
and called his boss. Another 10 minutes
passed before he gave me permission to go in.
After all that effort I hoped it was all worth it. But alas, after a short drive I got to the
pond and found a few ducks but no Turkeys.
What started as a promising trip was now down to just 1 possible
target – the Orange-crowned Warbler. And
if it hadn’t been for some lucky breaks, I might not have even been able to
access either of my first 2 planned stops.
On the drive back into TN I once again watched for Turkeys during the VA
part of the route, but another strikeout.
Though I wasn’t more than a couple miles into TN when I spotted a Turkey
flock on the roadside, which I don’t need in TN – very frustrating…
A few minutes later I pulled into the waterfront of the South
Fork Holston River in Kingsport, TN. The
hotspot was titled Riverfront Seafood which was a restaurant along the
river. And although there was some brush
between the restaurant and the river, other recent Orange-crown sightings were
scattered along the waterfront nearby.
So I figured all the brushy area along the river could be possible sites
to search. Though in reality the habitat
was quite limited. In fact, I wondered
why most any bird might be attracted to it.
Here is a representative shot of one of the “better” areas.
I had heard that Orange-crowns will respond to recordings, though I had never had any success attracting them this way. But this time I decided to give it a try since this was my last opportunity to avoid striking out for the entire trip.
I started at the restaurant and scoured it quite well, just
finding a couple Song Sparrows. And
nothing responded to recordings of the Orange-crown call. I then walked over toward the west and found
this cooperative Great Blue Heron feeding along the water’s edge.
The next spot with some habitat was under the large I-26 overpass with some large trees but little brush for a warbler to forage in. Though a skulking Carolina Wren initially caught my attention. Then I played some more tape and almost instantly got a response – but was it an echo of my tape bouncing off the bridge? I played some more tape and heard more chip notes in response. And a few seconds later found a most cooperative Orange-crowned Warbler foraging half way up the trees. The trees were covered in what looked like old webs from fall webworms, and the warbler was picking through them looking for tasty winter-time morsels. Interestingly this bird had no streaking below whereas the one photographed here 2 days earlier had pretty obvious streaking. There were at least 2 Orange-crowns here continuing a trend from the last several winters.
At least I got 1 statebird for the trip. Although I dipped on the other 4, I had 1
more than I had the day before. And it
was #250 for my TN statelist – my 26th state with at least 250.
TN was my 41st state for Orange-crowned Warbler. In my statebird map below, the blue-shaded
states are those where I’ve seen it in its regular range; those that are
cross-hatched are the ones where I still need it in its regular range. And the 5 tan New England states are those
where I’ve seen it as a rarity.
And now humor me while I get on my soap box about eBird and my access
problems -
As I said earlier, eBird has been a great resource for
me. But the downside is that eBird has pretty much
made the state listserves obsolete. Just
a few years ago I would go to the listserves not only to understand what has
been sighted, but also to obtain details on those sightings. Birders would often provide details on where
to find rarities, how to access the site, and just how to bird the area in general. Don’t get me wrong, those same details can
be provided in eBird. But the only
details required by eBird are those required to confirm the IDs. And few birders go above and beyond to
provide those most valuable additional details.
Now let’s focus on site access. Some eBird hotspots have limited or no access
and appropriately include that detail right in the hotspot name. Then again, many of these same hotspots will
have multiple eBird sightings - I guess access can’t be too limited. Then there are the ones like Musick’s
Campground and Nicewonder Pond on my TN/VA trip that are obviously on private
property. But no access, or limited access, is
not mentioned anywhere in the birders’ checklists, nor in the hotspot
information. Local birders apparently know
how to access these “private” sites – why not share those details in their
reports?
Consider those sightings of rarities at residential
feeders. Some of these are truly private
and no access is allowed. But then there
are others where the homeowner does allow birders to visit their feeders. But the procedures to access the feeders are
often not included, neither in the hotspot name nor in birders’
checklists. A great example of access
challenges was when I took a trip to Athens, GA earlier this winter to chase
after 3 rare hummingbirds coming to 3 different residential feeders there. Although all 3 homeowners welcomed birders to
see their birds, info on only 1 was readily available in birders’
checklists. It took me many hours of
research to finally get the info on the other 2.
My message to eBirders – if birding at a given location is
not straightforward, include at least a few details about how to bird that spot
in your checklist, as well as details on how to locate rarities you’ve found. Alternatively, if the spot is truly inaccessible,
say so. Just a few seconds to provide
extra input would greatly improve the birding experiences of those that follow
you.
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