<< Back 8/28/02 The Naturalist's Corner By Don Hendershot Rankin Bottoms is the closest I’ve been to the Louisiana delta where I grew up in years. The mud is not buckshot but it is slick and black. There are no cypress trees, but willows rise from the water and button bush hugs the shore. Carp stand on their heads in the muddy water, their tails waving in the air. Herons and egrets fill the willows and wade in the shallows. Cicadas sing from the treetops in the heat. I have never seen Rankin Bottoms full of water, but my heart’s eye sees a forest of water beneath the willows like the oxbow lakes along the Mississippi where I used to fish with my Dad as a kid. Douglas Lake is a TVA hydroelectric project and as is the norm, draw down starts in late summer. As the water recedes, mud flats appear. Migrating shorebirds by the thousands take advantage of this man-made stopover and drop in to feed and rest during their long journey south. Terns, gulls, grebes, cormorants and ducks also take advantage of this resting place. There is an osprey nest on an old railroad trestle, and cliff swallows nest beneath the bridge across the French Broad. I discovered Rankin Bottoms virtually, while I was perusing Jack Siler’s website — a compilation of birding listservs from across the country, looking for a place within driving distance to get a glimpse of migrating shorebirds. The most amazing thing about this muddy slice of my past is, it’s only an hour from Waynesville. Rankin Bottoms is located at the eastern end of Douglas Lake at the French Broad River embayment just outside Newport, Tenn., off U.S. 25 east. I remember the first time I visited the bottoms. Bob Olthoff, Sean O’Connell and I went up to check it out. Bob had been there earlier in the week and knew where we were going. We drove down the road towards the old coal tipple along the railroad track. We didn’t quite make it to the tipple as the road disappeared beneath the water. As we stopped we saw a shorebird in the road. A cursory glimpse revealed a killdeer. But further study through binoculars revealed a different story. It was a ruddy turnstone. If someone had told me that morning that I would find a ruddy turnstone on a gravel road in east Tennessee I probably would have disagreed. The next trip down was with Bob, Cathy King and Beth Brinson. We had been following Rankin on the listserv and knew the water was falling and that canoes provided the best medium for observing shorebirds. Shorebirds were there in good numbers. We saw hundreds, representing at least 12 species. We also saw large numbers of black terns, one Forster’s tern, two ring-billed gulls and a few black-crowned night herons. I also got a firsthand comparison between Rankin Bottoms mud and delta buckshot. Bob turned to get a better look at a couple of black terns, the canoe turned, and we got a good look at the bottom of the canoe and a good feel for the mud flat about a foot beneath the surface of the water. Rankin Bottoms mud looks a little like buckshot and it exudes a nice, damp organic aroma. But it is not buckshot. We were able to stand without much effort. I don’t think we sank much below our ankles. In the Louisiana delta we would have never seen our knees. I understand that the high water of spring and summer offers great canoeing through the willows with good looks at nesting prothonatary warblers and little green herons. I can hardly wait. I hope Bob has his sea legs by then. (Don Hendershot can be reached at don@smokymountainnews.com)