[birdky] RPT: Links for Transient Lakes article and Least Bitterns in Hopkins Co.

Gary Ritchison has posted a couple of new links for the 1991 article on the 
Transient Lakes season of 1989 at the following links for *.pdf and *.htm 
formats. Hopefully the article will be accessible to all in one of the three 
formats. I am also going to try to scan a couple of Gordon Wilson's early 
articles on the transient lakes sometime in the near future for linking to.
 

http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/WoodburnLakes.htm

 

and 

 

http://www.biology.eku.edu/kos/WoodburnLakes.pdf

 
Last week, Danna Baxley and Eric Williams with KDFWR reported hearing and 
getting glimpses of a couple of marsh birds at KDFWR's relatively new Clear 
Creek WMA in Hopkins County, but they were not sure what the birds were. 
Yesterday several of us returned to the site and confirmed the presence of 
several Least Bitterns (I think one was building a nest). The site can be 
accessed via a gravel boat ramp along Utley Road (KY Gazetteer p. 61, southeast 
corner of block B-8). The ramp is at a small gravel parking area on the south 
side of the Clear Creek bottoms at the corner of Utley Road that is just 
southeast of the "D" in UTLEY RD on the gazetteer. Exploring the area by canoe 
or kayak would be ideal, but there are only a few channels and openings amidst 
the thick growth of Phragmites (reed) and other aquatic vegetation and you have 
to pick up over a beaver dam or two. Once you get out past a jon-boat wide 
channel of a 200-300 yards, there are a couple of relatively open pools that 
look great for everything from moorhens to rails to bitterns; yesterday we saw 
the bitterns in the second opening (the two are connected by another narrow one 
boat-wide channel about 50 feet long). Keep in mind that there are quite a few 
cottonmouths in this swamp, although we saw none yesterday! You *might* be able 
to get a better idea of where the openings are by checking out the aerial 
photos of the area at Google Earth on the internet.  Eric, John Brunjes and 
others at KDFWR would be appreciative of any reports of marsh birds that are 
obtained from visits to this site.
 
BPB, Frankfort

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