Second Time is the Charm for Eared Grebe in Tennessee, September 28, 2022

In January 2022 I chased after an Eared Grebe in the northeast corner of TN at South Holston Lake.  The bird had been seen nearly daily for 2 weeks, and was reported 2 days before my trip.  So I was optimistic about my chances.  But it turned out that the last time the Grebe was spotted was indeed 2 days before I made the drive to TN.  Despite lots of searching I was the first person to come up empty on the Grebe.

So when reports of an Eared Grebe started to show up in September 2022 just west of Knoxville they really caught my attention.  The bird was at quite a small lake on the campus of Pellissippi State Community College in Knox County.  It was first reported on September 10 and continued to be seen on a daily basis.  I wasn’t too worried about chasing after it right away since vagrant Eared Grebes are often long-staying birds.  Then again, the South Holston Lake bird only stayed for 2 weeks, so I probably shouldn’t wait too long. 

I finally cleared my calendar to chase after the bird on September 28, and started to make my plans for the trip.  I also needed several migrant passerines for my TN state list, so I searched for migrant hotspots near the Community College that I could stop at while in the area.  A nearby eBird hotspot called Sharp’s Ridge had nearly daily reports of migrants, and was generally on my way back home, so I decided to give that one a try.  Although it would likely be best to look for the migrants in the early morning, my key target was the Eared Grebe.  So I decided to first look for the Grebe as my top priority bird, then try for the passerines afterwards if time allowed.

I was out of the house before 6 on the 28th, and pulled into the campus of Pellissippi State Community College about 8:15.  The small lake was right in front of me as I parked in one of the large parking lots (luckily no parking permits were needed).

I got out of the car and quickly scanned the lake with my binoculars.  There were a few Canada Geese and a number of domestic Muscovy Ducks, but no Grebe.  I scanned again but once again came up empty.  Several of the recent reports mentioned that the Grebe would dive frequently so I tried to remain optimistic.  Though with each additional negative scan I couldn’t help but remember my failed search for this same species in TN back in January.  Finally on one of my scans I briefly spotted a bird near the northeast end of the lake just a fraction of a second before it dove.  Was it the Grebe?  I trained my binocs at that end of the lake for several seconds until a bird finally popped up to the surface – it was indeed the Eared Grebe.

The Grebe continued to feed at that far end of the lake, so I walked around for a closer look.  Eventually the bird stopped diving and swam quite close to shore.  I got these passable “digi-binned” shots of my target bird. 

My statebird map for Eared Grebe is inserted below.  The blue-shaded states are those where I’ve seen this species in its regular range; cross-hatched MO is the last one in its regular range where I have not yet seen it.  And now TN is the 8th eastern state (shaded in brown) where I’ve seen Eared Grebe as a rarity.  It was #253 for my TN state list.

The Grebe continued at the community college stay at least through October 4.  Like I said – no need to rush after it. 

I only stayed at the college for a few minutes – after all there were other birds to chase after.  Next I headed to Sharp’s Ridge for some migrants.  My most likely target was Gray-cheeked Thrush which was seen there a number of times recently, including the previous day.  One recent report had Gray-cheeked and other thrushes at a fruiting black gum tree by “the ranger’s house”. 

I pulled into the park just before 9:30 and after a bit of driving found what was likely the ranger’s house.  And about 150 ft away found the fruiting black gum tree and it was indeed full of activity.  I spent at least 60 minutes watching the tree as numerous thrushes and mimids came in to feed including – Mockingbirds, Robins, Catbirds, Thrashers, and Bluebirds.  Eventually I spotted a couple Catharus thrushes but they were just Swainson’s.  I wandered around the park a bit and ended up with a respectable tally of 10 warbler species, but couldn’t come up with a Gray-cheeked.  At least the views from the ridge were nice.

 Oh well, it gives me a reason to come back to TN during fall passerine migration.