FreeLists / birdky / [birdky] Recent Highlights

[David Roemer <dlroemer@xxxxxxxxx>]

A quick catch-up of recent trips:

July 30

A check of the rookery at Kuttawa on Lake Barkley
revealed many Cattle Egrets making feeding trips to
the island with a good number of young still in the
nest. Several thousand were present in the last two
hours of daylight as they flew into the roost. The
number of Little Blue Herons is up noticeably this
year with well over 100, and probably 200 present,
including juveniles and pied immature birds. Many
Black-crowned Night Herons and several Great and Snowy
Egrets are also associating with this group. 

July 31

I birded Fulton, Hickman, Carlisle, and Ballard
Counties, and recorded a grand total of nine
shorebirds other than Killdeer. The sloughs were dry,
and the river was too high. A few pools were beginning
to form on the Mississippi, and habitat will improve
as the level of the river drops. 

Nice concentrations of waders were present at Lake 9
in Fulton County and at Swan Lake in Ballard County.
Each of these included many Great Egrets as well as
Snowies and Little Blues.

August 5

A check on the Barkley Dam Scissor-tailed Flycatchers
revealed that one of the youngsters had left the nest,
but was staying close by on the tower. I'm sure the
ground looked a LONG way down to it. I could see a
couple of other heads sticking out of the nest, and
both parents were nearby. One of the adults was making
trips to the wooded area downstream near the bridge to
forage.

Other birds of interest on the day included an adult
Black-necked Stilt and a female Northern Pintail on a
pond in Livingston County, and a juvenile Laughing
Gull below the dam at Smithland.

Regular checks of Meng's Pond in Warren County, and
the Peabody Sinclair Unit in Muhlenburg County, have
turned up small numbers of common shorebirds including
Semipalmated Plover, Pectoral, Least, Semipalmated,
Spotted, and Solitary Sandpipers, as well as both
yellowlegs. A few Bell's Vireos are still singing at
Peabody. 

The number of hummers has increased dramatically in
the past few days with many juveniles out of the nest
now. Be sure and keep your eyes open for one with some
rufous in the base of the tail feathers  :o)

Dave









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