FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] Ensley in TN and Tunica Co. in MS

[OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx]

Dec. 11, 2005
Mississippi River and Ensley Bottoms
Shelby Co. TN
Tunica Co. MS
 
An early morning trip to the river front, revealed a couple of hundred  
Ring-billed Gulls and a single Red-breasted Merganser. At TVA Lake in Ensley, I 
 
scanned for over an hour but found only the regular cast of thousands  moving 
in 
and out of McKellar Lake. There were good numbers of Canvasback,  Redhead and 
Greater Scaup in the surprising 15 species mix along with a  Red-breasted 
Merganser, Green-winged Teal and single hen Pintail and Wigeon. The  four 
Goldeneye were missing but birds were coming and going like Grand Central  
Station on 
a Friday before a long weekend.
 
At Robco Lake, the numbers were slightly down with birds in groups of a  
thousand or more taking off and returning from Horn Lake. I did not find the  
White-winged Scoter but you probably need to set up for a long stay to see  
everything using the lake. There were 174 White Pelican that were later joined  
by 
21 more that flew in from Coro Lake across the road.
Three Horned Grebe were seen along with hundreds of Ring-billed  Gulls, 3 
Bonaparte's and a hundred plus DC Cormorants.
 
Tunica Co. Mississippi still takes the cake when it comes to numbers, even  
without rain. Geese were found mainly in the north and south parts of the 
county  but at sundown the skies filled with birds coming and going. I only 
found 7 
 Sandhill Cranes (3 and 4 at 2 locations) and came back trying to track 3 of  
them to roost just to gauge how many are in the area but was distracted by  a 
sleepy coyote and a Great Horned owl which I stopped to photograph. I think  
the Sandhills were going to roost in approximately the same area as previous  
years.
 
Shorebird wise, I found hundreds of Wilson's snipe, a scattering of Dunlin  
and a couple of Lesser Yellowlegs but no Least Sandpipers, Killdeer are in 
every  field. At Arkabutla Lake, Q. B. Gray and I scanned the thousands of 
Bonaparte's  and Ring-billed but came up with nothing else BUT the only 2 
Herring 
Gulls I saw  ALL weekend. Huge snow drifted banks of White Pelicans can be seen 
resting on  the lake and I saw one group of 21 in the Delta circling high.
 
The big kick were the flocks in the thousands of Lapland Longspurs found at  
4 locations. There has got to be some goodies in those flocks, still looking 
for  my second McCown's or Chestnut -collareds down there or my 3rd Snow 
Bunting. The  area also produced 3 different groups of Western Meadowlarks.
 
Kenny and Ladonna Nichols with Dick Baxter just found a McCown's in a  flock 
near Jonesboro, AR just last week. It just takes time to look at them  all ;o) 
 
Good Birding  !!!

Jeff R. Wilson / TLBA
6298 Memphis-Arlington Road
Bartlett, TN  38135



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