[tn-bird] Changing Times.

March 22-23-24, 2002

I watched through the rain all last week, looking for the return of the Wind 
Birds. The end of March always brings my first Golden Plovers and my early 
spring movement of Upland Sandpipers. On Friday, in the late afternoon glow, 
I detected the pacing, stop and go gate of Golden Plovers in a plowed field 
at Shelby Farms. I hurried back to another wet field, a favorite site for the 
early Upland movement every year at the end of March. I settled in to let 
things get use to my truck and scanned the birds. A few gulls were left from 
the glut using the area during all the rain, Mallards were mucking around, 
Eastern Meadowlarks sung, Snipe snuck through the grass keeping a beady eye 
on me and Horned Larks towered and dropped back to the ground. It took about 
15 minutes before I saw the first long neck appear and then the second and 
before long in a distant corner, three Uplands slowly hunted the grasses. 
They are so much easier to see in the spring in the short grass and they 
always mark the official start of the Spring Season of the Wind Birds for me.

I talked Mark Greene into doing a half Big Day, half scouting day to look for 
new arrivals here along the Mississippi. We started at Lauderdale at a 
leisurely 7 AM counting Pipits and finished at 7 PM watching Short-eared 
Owls, gathering over 100 species and welcoming quite a few new year birds and 
saying good-bye to some winter favorites.

American White Pelicans were more numerous as they head back to nesting areas 
to the Northwest and DC Cormorants festooned the trees and stumps all over 
Reelfoot. Great Egrets were found in two places but the waterfowl numbers 
were way down with only 18 species ferreted out.

We had 20 Bald Eagles in one location near Phillippy with all the ages and in 
between molts represented. They were sitting on the ground and in a tree line 
but we never detected the attraction. We watched a few bathing but no feeding?

The mystery of the day came late in the evening at Black Bayou. A small pale 
raptor sat in a distant tree line but I'll let Mark tell "the rest of the 
story."

Wind Bird wise we found Golden Plovers in two locations, Killdeer, numerous 
Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs in the flooded areas, Least, Pectoral and Snipe 
for 7 species. Mark pulled a wonderful adult, black hooded Laughing Gull out 
of the Bonaparte's for 4 species of gulls. We had a 5 species owl day with, 
Screech, Great Horned, Barred, Barn and Short-eared. All the swallows with 
the exception of the always late arriving Bank were seen over the weekend. We 
spent only about 15 minutes actually in the woods so missed a few birds on 
that list such as Golden-crowned Kinglet. We did find an early, singing 
Yellow-throated Warbler for a bonus bird. Sparrow numbers have been down all 
season and a few evidently have left but Vespers are back in the area (found 
by others but missed by us). We did get 7 Western Meadowlarks, chupping and 
singing.

High winds made birding at Paris Landing on Sunday almost impossible so I 
spent most of the day searching out new viewing locations and stumbled onto a 
couple of good new spots. Gulls, loons and grebes bobbed in the whitecaps but 
nothing outstanding. 

Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL' COOT / TLBA
Bartlett Tenn.


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