FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Weekend Finds TN-MS

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

June 11-12, 2005
Shelby and Tipton Co. TN
DeSoto and Tunica Co. MS
 
At Ensley, the Black-necked Stilts continue to hatch young and protest  
voyeurs and I saw only 4 White-rumped Sandpipers among the many Killdeer on the 
 
flats. Painted Buntings still sing while the Chat has grown silent except  for 
brief chups and whistles given from deep inside the scrubby vines, unlike  the 
exposed perches used just last week to cast its full repertory of left over  
parts of various songs bestowed to Chats only after all the good parts were  
given other species.
 
The Western Kingbirds at Ensley are still awaiting young, the male was not  
staying close to the female on the nest but venturing and hunting a good  
distance away. I found a possible second nesting on President's Island but 
could  
not get near the area and caught only flashes of a foraging bird going  around 
a grain elevator superstructure on McKellar Lake. 
 
I also had 2 Ring-billed Gulls on McKellar Lake and 2 male Lesser Scaup.  One 
group of lounging Mallards numbered 134 but not a dark bird in the bunch.  
Hopefully the Mottled Ducks will return after their brief visit last month.  
Kenny and LaDonna Nichols had adults with young last week in Arkansas, so why  
not here?
 
The female Scissor-tailed Flycatcher on President's Island is still  
incubating eggs and I found the LONG TAILED male about a half mile away feeding 
 in a 
field to the north. I followed it to the nest and got a photo of it  hovering 
at the nest. The Short Tailed male seen last week near the nest  evidently was 
not one of the pair. I saw him again, just south of the nest in  the area we 
watched him fly to last week. I followed him around wondering if  there was 
another nest but lost him. It might be a year old bird returning to  its 
hatching area or we might get lucky with another pair. His short tail  is very 
worn 
and appears as last week to have been broken off.
 
I watched a single male Scissor-tailed Flycatcher foraging over a cotton  
field in Tipton Co. The bird was off Coon Valley Road north of Cedar Point. The 
 
bird kept going back to the tree line to the west and eventually  disappeared.
 
The gates are locked at Eagle Lake Refuge, so I could only scan from  parking 
lot. I had 1 Black-necked Stilt male, 1 adult Bald Eagle circling along  with 
21 Mississippi Kites. The kites were seen just about everywhere along the  
river in Tipton Co. There is a lot of activity in the rookery north of Eagle  
Lake Refuge with many Great Blue and Great Egrets making trips in and out.  I 
saw only scattered Great Egrets in Tipton Co.
 
The river is on another rise and is quickly recapturing sandbars where the  
luckless Least Terns were at last trying to nest. The colony on the Hatchie Bar 
 are the only ones with high enough ground to survive this 7-8 rise. It is 
back  to the fields for the others. The road at Ballard Slough was washed out 
this  year and has been closed until recently. You still can't drive through 
unless  you cross a field but you can get to the Bank Swallow nest area. It 
also  
suffered damage, as when the road collapsed so did the steep sand bank. Most 
of  the birds have moved to a new area to the north which is harder to view 
and I  saw another colony just off Randolph's Bluff.
 
The male western Kingbird that was seen on territory and heard  calling in 
DeSoto CO. MS a few weeks ago, evidently did not attract a mate and  has left. 
I 
searched an extensive area in Tunica Co, but came up empty handed. I  did see 
2 pair of Broad-winged Hawks over the trees along the levee. You don't  see a 
lot of these in the flat delta along the river. Black-necked Stilt couples  
were found in almost every newly flooded rice field.
 
Good  Birding!!!
Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett,  TN


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