FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Shorebird Weekend

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

May 1-2, 2004
Ensley Bottoms
Shelby Co. TN


I spent 5 hours at the pits in the rain Saturday and 6 hours there in the sun 
today. There are more birds there today than Saturday when the storms started 
to put the birds down and the north wind stopped more today.

I love to scan these immense spreads of Wind Birds and there was more than I 
could get around to today. My high counts on each species for the weekend 
totaled 5955 birds not counting the Killdeer which would put the figure at 
6000. A 
total of 18 species were seen today with 16 found on Saturday. Nothing really 
exciting or exceptional other than 24 LB Dowitchers on Saturday building to 
76 on Sunday.

For spring that is an exceptional number of shorebirds at one location. 
Spring can be iffy and weather and food have a lot to do with what you find. 
The 
birds only build for a day or two before the weather sweeps them away again, 
unlike fall when they are in no hurry and numbers can build for a week or two.

The only Am. Golden-Plovers seen were hurrying SOUTH. I watched 21 come over 
the Steam Plant and streak over the pits and the last I saw of them, they were 
over North Lake still going lickety-split. They must have had an encounter 
with a Peregrine and decided going north was not the best idea this year. 

Semipalmated Plovers were down to 35 little strutters today and the 
Black-necked Stilt number was a steady 24 all weekend. Greater Yellowlegs 
number was 9 
on Saturday and down to 4 on Sunday while the 800 lesser Yellowlegs on 
Saturday grew to 1420. Still great numbers of Solitary Sandpipers with 241 
counted on 
Sunday and only 5 Spotted Sandpipers could be found and all were within a 100 
feet of each other. Semipalmated Sandpipers went from 10 or 12 on Saturday to 
48 on Sunday but I think more dropped in about noon. 

Western Sandpipers were mostly all short-billed males and I could only pick 
out 4. Least Sandpipers numbers tripled from Sat to Sunday with a final count 
of 3540. Pectoral Sandpipers hit 475 on Sunday with 33 Stilt Sandpipers. 
White-rumped Numbers went from 2 to 17 and 1 Baird's tried to pass but could 
not get 
by TLBA. This afternoon I finally pulled out 2 real buffy-orange Short-billed 
Dowitchers in a pool all by themselves while the 76 Long-billed were spread 
out all over the back pool. Two Wilson's Snipe were flushed from one roadside 
ditch over in the AG area to complete the list. 

I expected at every turn to find a Wilson's Phalarope or a Dunlin but nada.

Sunday afternoon, Eagle Lake was locked up but I did count 37 Mississippi 
Kites putting on a show over the open fields. At Ensley two Painted Buntings 
were 
seen but they were far enough apart not to be in competition and the Ensley 
Bald Eagle STILL SETS EGGS.


Good Birding!!!

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


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