FreeLists / tn-bird / [TN-Bird] KY Lake area; 12/3/06

[<birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

12/3/06
KY Lake areas of Henry & Benton Co. (all in Henry unless otherwise noted)
Pace Point area to Britton Ford

I had a few hours to kill today, so decided to see if there had been any 
change in the cast of characters on KY Lake. Ironically I wanted to go to 
Reelfoot today, but didn't think I had the time. After seeing Terry's post 
about the Thayer's and the number of birds at the Gull 'Honeyhole' near the 
prison, I'll have to get over there soon.

I stopped briefly on the way into Pace this morning at the observation 
platform area, and had 7 Eagles up soaring; one of which was a GOLDEN which 
quickly sailed away. Michael Bernard arrived just after I did, and we spent 
the next few hours birding around the Pace area. We would get one more quick 
look at the Golden later in the day.

I guess the weather forecast had changed since the last time I looked at it, 
as I wasn't expecting the brutal wind we faced. We started at Rocky Point, 
with very little going on. Whitecaps were terrible, and only a handful of 
loons were seen in the area. Horned Grebe numbers looked to have plummeted 
since the last time I was in the area as well. Nothing of note at Rocky 
Point. We next made tracks for Pace Point, as the two target Grebes hadn't 
cooperated for Michael on his last trip up. I felt good when we arrived at 
Pace, as the bay on the west side was fairly sheltered, and full of birds. I 
picked up the long-staying immature WHITE-WINGED SCOTER immediately, amongst 
the horde of Ruddy Ducks and big numbers of Scaup, with many Greaters in the 
mix. This is the 1st time I've been up here in the last month that the big 
group of divers has been there, but the Western and Red-necked Grebes 
haven't. We spent a lot of time going through the birds in this area, over 
two separate trips to the point, and never saw either the Western or 
Red-necked Grebes. But, there were many birds out on the edge of vision and 
beyond, that with the conditions couldn't be identified past 'bird'. 
Hopefully they were just in another area. The east side of Pace Point was 
extremely rough, with nothing going on. Horned Grebes were only represented 
in 2's and 3's, nothing like the numbers of the last few trips.

Michael needed LeConte's for his TN list, but the field has been cut since 
my last trip up. There is still a narrow strip of suitable habitat left, but 
we didn't have any luck jumping a LeConte's today. But, we didn't jump much 
of anything else either, with a strong wind keeping everything down. A small 
flock of about a dozen RUSTY BLACKBIRDS was a treat here as they briefly sat 
in a tree in the ditch line. Hopefully someone will figure out how to 
reverse the present plight of this charismatic bird.

The bay below the observation platform is filling up fast now, thousands of 
birds packed in there. It's a shame now that the platform hasn't been 
completed, as the trees have grown up so much along the bay that to see most 
of it you're looking through trees now, so you really can't see. I didn't 
spent much time going through things here, but bound to be something 
interesting in the mix.

On the way out we took a quick look at Lick Creek (Benton Co). Only thing of 
note here were a few Least Sandpipers and 50+ Forster's Terns. I went by 
Britton Ford on the way home (sort of), but most of the big raft of divers 
was out past the bay visible as a mirage in the distance. I didn't see 
anything of interest here at all, and though there were a lot of Greater 
White-fronted Geese in the area, I didn't see any small Canada/Cackling 
Geese. Overall pretty brutal day to birding the river, but it's always worth 
the trip up. Now, time for Reelfoot and the CBC's!

Good Birding!!

Mike Todd
McKenzie, TN
birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pbase.com/mctodd

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