FreeLists / tn-bird / [tn-bird] Wet Weekend

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

March 30-31, 2002

I started up toward Reelfoot Friday night but was turned back in Tipton Co. 
by torrential rains and flooded roads. I called ahead and was told that 
highway 51 was underwater in a few places near Dyersburg. I visited Eagle 
Lake Refuge Saturday morning and found that the river has finally covered the 
refuge. Watching the river stages all week and seeing the three week rise 
slowing slightly I was afraid that another year would pass without water 
covering the refuge. It has been a few years since the spring floods had 
recharged the land. The Mississippi RV rise from 6 foot to 30 foot has now 
abated with a slight decline showing the last few days. This should give the 
later migrating shorebirds some good flats if the water is held. Very little 
was seen there except a token number of ducks and Great Blue Herons. An 
Orange Crowned Warbler was found foraging in the rain and the Barn, Tree and 
Rough-winged Swallows were out numbered by the Purple Martins.

At TVA Lake in Ensley Bottoms the Scaup numbered in the hundreds with just a 
very few being of the Greater variety. A few Ring-billed and Bonaparte's fed 
over the amorous Pied-billed Grebes. Blue-winged Teal, Gadwall, Hooded 
Merganser, Mallards, Wood Ducks and Pied-billed Grebe pairs were found in the 
road side wetlands off Riverport Road. Fewer Red-tailed Hawks were seen, the 
Bald Eagle hunkered down in the nest during the rain, Kestrel and Loggerhead 
Shrike are paired. A single Chimney Swift on Saturday was replaced by dozens 
frolicking in the air after the rain stopped on Sunday. A few Golden Plovers 
were in the plowed fields along with a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers and on 
Sunday a pair of Black-necked Stilts appeared as if by magic, elegantly 
standing in a puddle just large enough for two.

In North Mississippi I found many Golden Plovers in fields that produce birds 
each year like clock work. They certainly favor certain fields over others 
that appear to be the same but what do we know. About 30 miles south on the 
levee I finally found a single Upland Plover strolling in the wet grasses on 
Sunday. In a field just west of Walls, MS I found a large number of 
Ring-billed and Bonaparte's Gulls and 7 Forster's Terns resting in a ditch.

On Mud Island I stopped to see if anything was moving over the bank full 
Mississippi River and in an hour I saw only a few gulls and DC Cormorants, 2 
Cooper's Hawks and a lone Turkey Vulture all traveling north. The resident 
Purple Martins were being very quite and I could watch three different Robins 
building nest from my vantage point, while two Mockingbirds argued off and on 
about where the boundary line lay in the parking lot. I added a few wet birds 
to the year list and I'm waiting for the big push that is building just to 
our south to load us up with returnees.

Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL' COOT / TLBA
Bartlett Tenn.


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