FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] KY Lake area 1/9/05

[<birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1/09/05
KY Lake area from Paris Landing to Pace Point
Henry & Benton Co.

A day covering my usual haunts produced a lot of birds, but no surprises. I 
did run into a couple of friends in the form of Gary Casey and Terry Witt 
though.

When I got to Paris Landing, I was a little disappointed to see that the 
traditional loafing site, the island just south of the bridge, had some duck 
hunters parked on it, and nothing else. As I crossed the bridge though, the 
north side of the road around Gray's Landing, was literally covered in 
gulls, mostly Bonaparte's. The small island just off of Gray's Landing 
doesn't usually get much attention from the gulls, but today it was 
literally covered, as in it looked like a blizzard had formed at that one 
location. There were at least 4,000 to 5,000 Bonaparte's in this area, with 
many less than 50 yards from the shore, making for great viewing. The 
rasping calls of the Bonies was incessant. I tried for an hour and a half to 
pick something out of this mass, but nothing even looked suspicious. I have 
no doubt there is something good in the mix, but Terry said he had the same 
luck as I did. No sign of a Lesser Black-back, much less the Great 
Black-back, just the usual menagerie of Herring Gulls.

At Britton Ford, most of the ducks were out in the main channel, with very 
few birds in even remotely close. Nothing special here, though Terry did 
pick up a couple of Redheads out of the mass of Canvasback in the distance. 
The Canada Geese were joined by a dozen Greater White-fronts, and 2 Ross's. 
There were also 2 geese that appeared to be Canada x Greater White-front 
hybrids, they were too far for a photo though.

A quick stop at Lick Creek (Benton Co.) produced little else but a gazillion 
more Bonaparte's in the distance, and 5 Forster's Terns sitting on a close 
flat.

Best news at Big Sandy, is that the road to Pace Point is now open, but in 
bad shape. The bay behind the maintenance shed is full of ducks, but they 
are all using the far side of the bay. Scoping this area out produced all 
expected ducks for this time of year, except Wood Duck, including a sweep on 
Mergansers. There were 4 Common Mergansers in the area, 2 male and 2 female.

Pace Point itself had several Gulls on it, but all Ring-bills and Herring. 
There were a lot of ducks in the area, but all the usual suspects. 
Amazingly, I saw 1 Common Loon from Pace Point, which along with 8 in the 
bay behind the maintenance shed, made for a total of 9 loons on the day. 
There were NONE farther up the Big Sandy, I didn't go over to Granny's 
Branch on the TN River, hopefully some were in that area.

Rocky Point was loonless, but covered in diving ducks. Good numbers of 
Greater Scaup, but none of the hoped-for Scoters or Long-tailed Duck. 
Red-breasted Merg's are really putting on a show with their displays right 
now. There were easily 1,000 Common Goldeneye in the area, maybe we'll dig 
out a Barrow's up here one of these days.

A nice day, but a quiet day!

Mike Todd
McKenzie, TN
Carroll Co.
birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pbase.com/mctodd


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