Spring Birding amongst the mayhem

Here we are in the midst of this quarantined times and the birds just keep on coming into the landscape. Bird counts and club meetings are going to be delicately planned if possible at all.

Group outings are on the forbidden list, as they should be. Four people in a car is a problem waiting to happen.

But, spring has arrived, if you can think of it substantially different from winter which was probably a warm one for us. Negligible snow. Hardly got below freezing air temperatures. The non-winter might cause us a very buggy summer.

I load my sunflower feeder pretty regularly even with all the flowers and plants starting to bloom. The one bag of thistle got demolished by the finches. Once they start it becomes a crowd. I think they even chased off a squirrel. But thistle bags are expensive and the older the bag, if you’re using refills, the more stained it gets. Don’t know if the stain is a problem.

So far the customer base at the feeding is routine: cardinal, house/purple finch, titmouse, white breasted nut-hatch, downy woodpecker, red-bellied woodpecker, chickadee, towhee, mourning doves (on the ground below) and robins out in the yard. A mockingbird has discovered my suet feeder but the woodpeckers have not.

The Johnson City city parks are “accessible” and with the weather starting to change the bird watching ought to pick up. Winged Deer Park has some waterfowl although they are usually confined to Canada geese and Mallard. Birding across the road from the river in the wooded park(and doing about anything else there) is best in the mornings during the week. Winged Deer gets lots of bicycle traffic in the woods during the weekends. Jacob’s Creek on King Springs Road is very small but a variety of birds show up. I haven’t made it to Buffalo Mountain nor Willow Springs in a while so no reports there. Roan Mountain State Park is accessible but the bathrooms are closed. Just be careful about being in groups.

Under the new rules of safer-at-home in Tennessee and Johnson City just be advised to know those rules and be prepared.

Likewise, Boone Lake dam and Fort Patrick Henry dam, in Kingsport, are good birding spots. Big Springs Road along the South Holston River upstream from Bluff City is always good. And easy to get to.

The eagles have chicks but this year’s fledge I think is uneven compared to last year’s. You can always check the eagle-cam at East Tennessee State University’s home page (www.etsu.edu).
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