[TN-Bird] Franklin's Gulls Galore plus Avocets

Oct. 31, 2004
TN/MS

This morning the skies opened up and dropped a ton of rain. It had slacked 
off just enough, when I arrived at Mud Island in Downtown Memphis, for me to 
see 
the small sandbar that the dropping river had exposed Saturday. I could see 
that the bar was covered completely with some sort of birds, probably ducks I 
thought. After a look in the scope, I realized they were gulls and with the 
exception of a couple of immature Herring and 7 Ring-billed the rest appeared 
to 
be Franklin's.

As the lighting got better and clear skies peeked through, I could start to 
count as best I could. Over and over I came up with around 250 Franklin's and a 
little after 9 AM another 124 dropped in and crowded onto the small bar. I 
kept seeing some taller birds with long necks in one area of the mix, These 
turned out to be 8 Avocets that were preening and stretching their wings.

Later, I found 4 Franklin's on McKellar Lake and a quick trip to Arkabutla 
Lake in the afternoon, just a little souith of Memphis, produced 3 groups 
numbering over 450 birds.

There were only 8 American White Pelicans out from Memphis on the Mississippi 
but 2000+ are using Arkabutla. There were huge flocks of ducks spread across 
Arkabutla and I counted over 55 Forster's Terns where we had the Little Gull a 
couple of weeks ago.




Good Birding!!!

Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett, TN


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