FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] The Tide is Turning

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

June 11, 2003
Dyer, Lake Co. TN

Yesterday while looking for Black-necked Stilts and monitoring the 
Scissor-tailed FC nest, I searched a lot of wet areas. Among the finds were 
returning 
shorebirds for sure; confirming my suspicions from last week. At 79 Highway, I 
had 2 Pectoral Sandpipers with 3 Least Sandpipers and north of 103 Highway off 
the Great River Road I had 9 Least Sandpipers and 3 Pectoral. The bad weather 
had evidently set these south bound travelers on the Ground. Something is 
sending these birds back a little early but hopefully they just got up north 
early, got in a hurry and finished their business early. 

They were passing White-rumped Sandpipers heading north, as I had 4 
White-rumped off Hurd Loop Road and 17 more a little north on the Great River 
Road at 
MM #19. Another bird that could have been either coming or going was a crisp 
Forster's Tern that made for a good long study before it flew up to confirm its 
ID.

This is the best year I've ever seen for Grasshopper Sparrows and they have 
even returned to the fields where they had been singing until the waters rose. 
I can't get my fill of these boys as they sit atop grass stalks displaying, 
head down and wings akimbo, filling my scope. The colors and patterns on these 
handsome birds are perfect for this grass loving species.

The Black Duck male still can be seen off 103 Highway and late in the evening 
he went across the road to the west and returned with his Mallard girlfriend. 
Up to 7 Mottled Ducks are being seen in northeast central Arkansas and even a 
few in Cheyenne Bottoms in central Kansas, so why not here?  Two more assumed 
Black Ducks are being seen regularly at the Bogota Bottoms off the Obion 
River.

Good Birding!!!

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


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