[birdky] INFO and RFI: Transient lakes wrap up ...

From: "Palmer-Ball, Brainard (EEC)" <Brainard.Palmer-Ball@xxxxxx>
To: "BIRDKY" <birdky@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 28 Jun 2008 17:20:46 -0400
During the course of this past spring, several people asked me about the
transient lakes near Woodburn in southern Warren County ... how come
they've never heard of them before?, how often do they appear?, etc.
Relatively accurate answers to these questions can be found in several
articles that have been published in The Kentucky Warbler, most notably
a few from the birder who made the lakes famous during the first half of
the 20th Century, Gordon Wilson, who passed away in 1970 (a very nice
"In Memoriam" for Dr. Wilson, who was an English professor at WKU,
appears in The Ky Warbler Vol. 47(1971), pp. 6-9). In 1991, Gary Boggs
and myself coauthored an article that redescribed the nature of the
lakes and included a summary of the birds seen at them in 1989, the
first "great" year that had been documented since 1950. Gary Ritchison
has posted a reprint of that article on the KOS web site that can be
viewed at the following link:
 
www.biology.eku.edu/kos/Woodburn_Lakes_Return_1989.doc
<BLOCKED::http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/Woodburn_Lakes_Return_1989.doc>

 
That article provides a list of the most relevant articles by Gordon
Wilson, which I highly recommend to anyone interested in the transient
lakes. Most state universities have complete runs of The Kentucky
Warbler that can be seen by visiting their respective libraries. 
 
In more recent years the lakes have been good to great in stretches, but
it has been 1997 and 1998 since water lasted for as long a period as it
did this year. Every year is different with the lakes coming up whenever
abnormally high rainfall is recorded and lasting as long as
above-average precipitation continues. It is always disappointing when
dry weather arrives and the lakes disappear so quickly. In the early
1990s, I did an analysis of precipitation in south-central Kentucky and
correlated it to every tidbit of info on lake levels I could find from
Gordon Wilson and others. I never have published that analysis, but it
suggested that there were many years when the lakes were good but not
covered by birders (both before and after Gordon Wilson's era of study
... I wish, in particular, that I'd paid more attention to them in the
mid-1970s and early 1980s when hardly any observations were reported
during some fairly wet years), so no telling what has been missed over
the years! On the flip side, there have been *many* years (which often
seem to run in stretches of up to a decade) when periods of average to
below-average precipation result in no appearance of water at all. This
year's remarkable array of shorebirds can certainly be attributed at
least in part to unprecedented coverage, which had to have been almost
daily. The season's tally of noteworthy observations is going to include
a few reports of very rare species, several new extreme dates of
occurrence, and probably in the neighborhood of a dozen new state high
counts for shorebirds. As most of us have mentioned at one time or
another ... it is truly remarkable what passes over us and only
sometimes stops if there is habitat ... and is seen if someone happens
to be looking in the right place at the right time :o)
 
I am compiling a list of waterbirds that were seen at McElroy, Chaney,
and nearby smaller lakes this year for a brief summary for North
American Birds.  Looking back through BIRDKY posts, I see several
species for which records are lacking that I would appreciate reports of
sightings for. These include the following that I cannot find reference
to in my own notes or posts for this spring from the Woodburn area
(would not include Bowling Green proper): 
 
any swans
Redhead
Common Goldeneye
Common Merganser
Snowy Egret
Little Blue Heron
Cattle Egret
Green Heron
Sora
gulls other than Bonapartes, Ring-billed and Herring
Forster's Tern
 
On a somewhat unrelated note ... regarding "Morgan's Pond," its presence
this year has had me looking back at some old records. This "pond" and
associated karst lakes and ponds in the vicinity were not birded until
the summer of 1991, when I blundered across them doing Breeding Bird
Atlas survey work. Since that time they have been up most years when the
lakes in southern Warren County have been up. The array of waterbirds
there typically rivals what can be found in southern Warren County. I
recently tried to find out where I came up with the name "Morgan's Pond"
... I thought I had seen it on a map, but I realized this week that it
was actually a local landowner who told me that when the main pond used
to consist of a small but permanent body of water, it was named for the
family who owned the land, the Morgan's. I'm not sure there is anyone
who can refer us to the most appropriate form for naming this "pond,"
but in keeping with what seems to be the most standard naming of such
water bodies, I think it maybe should be referred to as Morgan Pond
rather than Morgan's Pond (which I have been using) or Morgans Pond.
Any thoughts or more detailed information on this topic are welcome.
 
bpb, Frankfort
[birdky] INFO and RFI: Transient lakes wrap up ...

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