[TN-Bird] American Avocets, etc. Pace Point 10/24/04

10/24/04
KY Lake area (including Pace Point, Big Sandy flats, Britton Ford, Eagle 
Creek flats, and Paris Landing)
Henry/Benton Co.

Don Manning and I made another run of our usual haunts today in Henry and 
Benton Co. The nicest birds were no doubt the group of 7 American Avocets at 
Pace Point, but the overall feeling of the day was one of the changing of 
the seasons. KY Lake has jumped back up several inches with the deluges 
we've had of late, and shorebird habitat is back on the skimpy side.

Don started the morning off well, as he had a bird scoped from his yard when 
I pulled up this morning. He had our 1st Vesper Sparrow of the season tee'd 
up in the top of a tree checking us out, as they like to do. We would see 
several other Vesper's today. Sparrows are in big time now, with 
White-throated, White-crowned, Song, Swamp, Savannah, Vesper, and Chipping 
all numerous today. We also had Lincoln's and a few Junco's. In contrast to 
only a week ago, when Indigo Buntings were still numerous, we saw none 
today. Same goes for several other neotropics, no Pewee, no Vireo's, no 
Swallows, etc.

We had Yellow-rumped Warblers at every turn, but only singles of 
Orange-crowned, Black-throated Green, Pine, and Common Yellowthroat in 
addition. We did have 5 species of Wrens, with several House Wrens around, 
to go along with the 1st of season Winter Wren, and Sedge and Marsh Wrens. 
Other 1st of season passerines were Golden-crowned Kinglet (several), and 
American Pipit (30+ at Britton Ford). We walked some interesting looking 
fields for Sparrows, but nothing unusual.

On the shorebird front, very little to report. Amazingly, the 7 Avocets made 
them numerically the 2nd most common shorebird of the day behind Killdeer! 
Also seen were 2 each of Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, and 2 Least 
Sandpipers, no Snipe or Dunlin today. The Avocets were moving around the 
Pace area quite a bit, and spooked once when an Apache gunship thundered 
past at low altitude. They had finally settled down to take a nap when we 
left. The only gulls seen were Ringers, Herring, and 2 Bonaparte's at Eagle 
Creek. For the 1st time in many trips, the island at Paris Landing was 
deserted of gulls, and we didn't get a Lesser Black-back. Forster's Terns 
are still remaining in numbers at Eagle Creek.

Common Loons have begun arriving in the area, with 3 in a small group out 
from Eagle Creek. Surprisingly, no Horned Grebes yet, and very few PBG's. 
Puddle Ducks were well-represented by all but Blue-winged Teal. Divers are 
yet to appear in any numbers, with only a small group of Ring-necked's, and 
a few dozen Ruddy Ducks in the area. Egrets are down to 4 Common's at the 
Eagle Creek flats, down from a couple of dozen last week.

Hawks were in short supply today, (to our eyes anyway) but we did get our 
1st Northern Harrier working the fields around the maintenance sheds on the 
Big Sandy Refuge.

I have added a gallery with a few shots of the Avocets, etc. This is at:
http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/pace_point_102404

Good birding!!

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





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