FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Big Sandy & Britton Ford areas; 1/5/06

[<birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

1/5/06
Big Sandy & Britton Ford areas; Henry Co.

I was able to spend about half of yesterday working the above areas. 
Conditions were far from optimal, but an amazing number of birds are in the 
area. Highlights included one of Jeff's Red-necked Grebes, Thayer's Gull, 
Golden Eagle, and (for me) large numbers of Cackling Geese.

The Pace Point area is literally awash with birds. High winds and wave 
action made viewing a little tough, but still lots of fun going through the 
birds. I had one of Jeff's Red-necked Grebes on the east side of Pace Point, 
but never could find the second, and nothing in the area that would pass for 
the Western Grebe. Over 100 White Pelicans were in the area as well. Among 
the divers, Greater Scaup and Red-breasted Mergansers were well-represented.

A walk through the woods just south of Pace Point, to get to where the loons 
have been congregating, was worth the effort. I had about 50 Common Loons in 
sight, but couldn't work anything else out. However, from this same area you 
have a good vantage of a long sandbar that is exposed with the water being 
so low, this was covered with gulls. As I was looking through the gulls 
here, a 1st-winter Thayer's Gull, on the paler end of that spectrum, came in 
and joined the crowd. An adult Bald Eagle came in and put everything up, 
offering more good views of the Thayer's in flight.

The Big Sandy side of Pace Point was dead, with not a loon being visible 
from Rocky Point. I was back through the maintenance shed area at 10:45, and 
had a subadult Golden Eagle up soaring over the treeline and out over the 
bay. The bay here, though about as low as I've ever seen it, is full of 
birds. Couldn't work out a Common Merganser though, this is usually the time 
and place for them.

Britton Ford was also wrapped up with birds. The cove at the north entrance 
is where most of the geese were hanging out, with 5 species still present. A 
nice flock of Snows and Blues got up, with a few Ross's in tow, and went to 
the corn fields while I was there. I had picked out a few Cackling 
(Richardson's) Geese among the hordes of Canada Geese. The highlight of the 
day probably was seeing the group of Cacklings that I was looking at (6), 
take off and join some other Canada-type Geese that had just taken off for a 
fly around of the area. It turned out that this other group were all 
Cacklings as well, so I had 44 of these little geese fly around the area and 
then come back into the water, where they mingled with their larger cousins. 
It was nice to be able to watch this group, with their very snappy 
wingbeats, and higher-pitched calls. This is definitely the most of these 
geese that I've seen at one time. It's funny that on the Cackling Geese, 
even thought they weren't at extremely long range, the bills of the bigger 
geese are always distinct, while the tiny bills of the Cacklings are hard to 
make out. The group of Greater White-fronts weren't too impressed with the 
Cacklers, as they slept the whole time I was there.

A quick run to Paris Landing didn't produce anything of note. Gulls were in 
a couple of distant feeding frenzies, but too far away to do much good with.

Good Birding!!

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

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