FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Anhinga Display Flight / Shorebirds

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

April 3, 2004
Ensley Bottoms,
Eagle Lake Refuge
Shelby Co, TN

I've been blessed for the second time in my birding life to watch an Anhinga 
in a display flight. After birding Ensley in the morning, I went to Eagle Lake 
and with the great vista and river location, I scanned the sky. After picking 
up only strings, vees, soaring and bunches of Double-crested Cormorants 
rushing north, (a continuation of birds seen at Ensley and over the river 
front) I 
picked up only a couple of traveling raptors, 3 Harriers hunting over the 
fields and a few resident Red-tailed and Red-shouldered Hawks plus a feisty 
male 
Kestrel.

A distant, black dot peaked my interest as it slowly soared in tight circles 
and drifted up and to the east. It was too far for an ID at that point but it 
was too different to leave because it gave me the impression of being large. 
It was hard to keep up with and I'd lose it from time to time, it never once 
batted its wings but finally it did a signature move. It turned at the top and 
went into a long, straight glide, right to the area of the Great Blue Rookery. 
I jumped in the truck and drove closer and after a 30 minute wait, I was 
treated again to a male Anhinga and a repeat of the show. Evidently they are 
going 
to nest again in the rookery here in Shelby County!!

Dry conditions through out the area, where most fields have been prepped for 
planting, gives few places for shorebirds to rest and feed. As expected there 
were but a sprinkling of shorebirds at Eagle Lake Refuge, 6 Greater and 3 
Lesser Yellowlegs, 6 Pectoral Sandpipers and 16 Least. A few Wilson's Snipe 
were 
flushed from one area and a group of 21 Pectoral buzzed low over the area for 5 
minutes but found nothing to their liking and angled up and went north. 
Killdeer were attending 3 scrapes with a full clutch in one and 2 eggs in 
another. 
From watching the Legs I could tell there were high flying birds riding the 
winds north all morning, in the afternoon they were less interested or the 
movement had passed.

In the morning at TVA Lake in Ensley, there was not one Scaup but there were 
my "Wind Birds", 5 Lesser Yellowlegs, 62 Pectoral Sandpipers, 41 Least 
Sandpipers, Killdeer and a pair of Black-necked Stilts. The settling ponds of 
course 
will not produce much until they bloom later in April through June in this 
migration but the other small pools held 14 Lesser Yellowlegs, 6 Greater, 17 
Pectoral, 38 Least Sandpipers, 9 Wilson's Snipe and 3 more pair of Black-necked 
Stilts with the males sporting coral red legs. 

One species I've been looking for all week to show up at Shelby Farms was a 
no show here also, Upland Sandpiper. There was a movement of swallows with all 
present except Bank.


Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett, TN


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