FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Swell day at Pace Point!

[<birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

3/9/04
Pace Point area
Henry/Benton Co.

The subject line pertains more to the lake conditions than the birding!
I probably have seen worse, but I can't remember a day with the wind and
wave action worse in this area than today. Typically, when the water is
rough, the smaller loons are very tough to get looks at, but big Commons
usually remain fairly visible. Today, even the Commons were disappearing
for seconds at a time before cresting a wave and coming back into view
briefly again. The wind was pretty much unbearable at times, and finally
forced me home at about 15:00 with a severe headache.

Barbara Wilbur and Suva Bastin from Clarksville came up and spent part
of the day with me. Barbara had been up Sunday with Jeff and enjoyed the
Yellow-bill, but was hoping for some looks at a Red-throated and
hopefully another look at Pacific, today wasn't the day. Barbara said
she thought Sunday was rough, until she saw today! I had a brief look at
a Pacific at Rocky Point before they got there this morning, but I never
saw the bird again. It's hard to be sure, but it looks to me that loon
numbers may be down again, although I wouldn't have thought the winds of
the past couple of days would have favored migration. I did see two
separate Common Loons (one in near full breeding plumage) take off,
immediately start to gain altitude, and fly out of sight north over the
bridge. I guess when the urge hits you just have to go with it. On my
3rd trip to Rocky Point after lunch, and unfortunately after Barbara and
Suva had left, I had a one-time look at the head of an adult
Red-throated Loon, as it happened to surface where I was looking. I
doubt I could have gotten anyone else on it anyway. No sign of either
Yellow-billed, but my not seeing either of them today doesn't mean much
in my book. One or both could easily still be there.

Bird of the day, was the California Gull, which is still in the area. I
was scoping the gulls hunkered down out of the wind on the back side of
some trees on Pace Point (the point is no more, it now starts at the
trees on the island, I couldn't believe how much the water has come up
the past few days), when I noticed a single, largish gull soaring into
the Point from the west. When I 1st looked at it the amount of black on
the underside of the primaries caught my attention, as the ends of the
wings were a big, well-defined black triangle, gray shading was also
visible on the secondaries. As it came into the point, I could see the
long bill and bill markings. I hoped it would settle into the roost, but
just looked them over and sailed around the corner out of sight.

Loon numbers, high counts are as follows: Rocky Point (18 on my 3rd trip
there, previously 12 had been all I could pick up) Pace Point area and
towards bridge: (9), cove area south of Pace Point (16), Granny's Branch
(6).  The pair of Osprey's are still hanging out in the area around the
power lines at Granny's. Big changes to me were the numbers of some of
the ducks. Last week there were Red-breasted Mergansers and Common
Goldeneyes practically everywhere, today I only saw one small group of
about 20 Red-breasted's and one's and two's of Goldeneye's scattered
around. Scaup and Ruddies are still present in numbers.

Good birding!! (and better weather for whoever gets up there next!)

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



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