FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Ensley Report

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

August 6, 2005
Ensley Bottoms
Southwest Corner
Shelby Co. TN
 
After my river adventure Sunday morning, I met Mike Todd at Ensley to look  
for the stint,  and were later joined by Kevin Calhoon and Judy Newsome,  
unfortunately we had no luck. The migration witnessed on the river, carried on  
at 
the pits with the numbers halved from Saturday, possibly taking the stint  
with it. We did have birds dropping in and actually had more birds at dusk than 
 
we started out with earlier. Some birds dropped in and then continued their  
trips while others stayed. There was a large increase in Least Sandpipers which 
 elected to go to roost at the river, in 2 huge groups (3000 plus birds) as  
we stood in awe of the numbers leaving all at once, over our heads, like  
someone had given a signal.
 
We had lost the Stilt Sandpipers present on Saturday but 2 birds finally  
fell in calling softly and we later located a stunning immature in slick  
plumage. On Sunday, I had immature birds of all the species with the most  
impressive 
being a long billed brightly colored Western Sandpiper that fed 30  feet away 
from us at one of the pits. We were able to hear the different calls  as the 
birds came in from long journeys to the wake up, lets go calls of the  birds 
leaving for the coast, they are quite different.
 
As it has been lately we need more water, the down pour on Saturday evening  
soaked into the ground with no run off and you could see no evidence it had 
even  rain on Sunday.
 
 
 
Good  Birding!!!

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