Last Tuesday I joined some TN birding friends at Pickwick Lake in Hardin
County, TN, for some Hurricane Ida birding. I probably wouldn't have seen a
thing on my own, but with the keen eyes of Stolls, Todd, Greene, and others on
patrol we all got to see some Sooty Terns and a Long-tailed Jaeger.
On Wednesday, I was 50:50 on heading to Barren River Lake when I got Neil
Troyer's call about his odd waterbird. We've never quite figured out what Neil
saw but it was certainly something of interest. I scanned the lake with Rickey
Shive for quite a while in the afternoon but could only find Caspian, Black,
and Forster's Terns. I saw a pair of adult Sanderlings at the state park beach
and returned later in the afternoon with Rickey to see if they were still
around. We scanned up and down the beach with no luck and, with a couple of
sunbathers present, we figured they were gone. Then I noticed them, not 10 feet
from the people . . . one could just imagine that they will soon be wintering
on some beach with other humans, begging for cheetos ... :-)
Shorebird migration again this year is underwhelming. Locally the Falls of the
Ohio is under water for a second time in recent weeks from heavy rains, and the
Melco basin has lost much of its habitat to the quickly growing sedges. I have
continued to visit Union County with moderate success. David Bailey and I had
11 species of shorebirds on Friday but recent hunting activity there was likely
responsible for greatly reduced numbers.
On the family farm I've mostly been working with invasive species lately. That
has had me in the woods and, like others, I've encountered a variety of
migrants. After yesterday's nice rain finally cleared in the early afternoon I
actually walked around in search of migrants for a few hours. I had 11 species
of warblers including a look at a male Golden-winged Warbler in the afternoon
sun that would have even gotten Jane Bell excited (she sees so many of them
that I'm sure they are ho-hum to her anymore!). A pretty Kentucky Warbler
jumped up out of some dense cover for a nice long look, too. And again this
fall, Bay-breasted Warblers seem to be present in numbers that I recall seeing
in my early birding days of the 1970s and '80s.
The American Goldfinches are beginning to gather in my sunflower field; I'd say
the number has grown to about 50. Yesterday afternoon there was a Bobolink with
them.
One note of caution from the field of late . . . there are LOTS of
yellow-jackets around this year. Just in the past three days I have found *six*
nests of them in the wooded area I've been working in. And this is in addition
to several that I have seen that have been dug up by predators as well as a few
I noticed earlier in the season.
bpb, Louisville
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