[birdky] RPT: Dams area March 29, 2007

Eddie Huber and I were planning to visit Henderson County on Thursday,
but when we saw David had done a sweep of the area on Tuesday, we
decided to follow his footsteps from Wednesday in the dams and hope for
some of the birds he found down there.
 
We were partly successful, seeing the two Western Grebes from the
Lighthouse Landing sailboat beach area in the morning. Beware ...
afternoons are tough on the lakes with cool waters and warm air temps
making for pretty bad radiation distortion. We could only find the three
common gull species in the area, with probably 1000-1500 (maybe 2X
that?) Bonaparte's on Lake Barkley from the dam to Eddyville.  Common
Loons in breeding plumage were scattered but mostly on Kentucky Lake
(probably in excess of 100 easy). A few Horned Grebes in mixed plumages.
We saw a few Greater Scaup on Kentucky Lake and a few Red-breasted Mergs
on both. Lesser Scaup and especially American Coot were the predominant
birds on the waters. A few plume-adorned Great Egrets and some
Black-crowned Night-Herons have returned to the Kuttawa rookery. At
least 25 Forster's Terns were in the vicinity of Kuttawa.
 
We took a few forays into the woods and were rewarded with our first
views of nesting warblers and an early Palm Warbler. Single Savannah and
Vesper Sparrows in a small clearing in LBL illustrated that migration
for those species is well underway.
 
Two of five "units" in the field below Barkley Dam have been burned. The
one closest to the dam had a single female Brewer's Blackbird foraging
in it.
 
bpb and eh

Other related posts: