Oct. 28-29, 2006 River Front and Ensley Bottoms Shelby Co. TN I had just a short time to bird Saturday but managed to check both the river and Ensley. The river is just topping out about a 16 foot rise and there were pods of Coot, Ruddy, Wood, Ring-necked, Scaup and Gadwall floating downstream or holding behind some of the dikes. An Osprey hung in the wind over the trees on the far side of Dacus Bar. Strings of DC Cormorants were constantly winding there way south. At Ensley, the numbers had finally turned with Killdeer finally outnumbering the Least Sandpipers, a single Dunlin and Pectoral were seen and the only Yellowlegs found were 5 Greater in Horn Lake slough. Kestrels, Cooper's, Red-tailed Hawks plus a single Harrier made up the raptor list. On Sunday about 4 hours sitting on the river and scanning produced about the same stuff as Saturday until 10:30 when someone pulled the plug up north and the counting began. Two groups of Franklin's Gulls, one floating by and another swirling in circles while traveling south totaled 131 individuals with 3 first year Laughing Gulls in the floating group. A few Ring-billed Gulls and 1 adult Herring Gull passed Mud Island. Four flights of A. White Pelicans held 478 birds with one immature Blue Goose that stayed with one group in sight, soaring and kettling for over 15 minutes. Thirteen skeins of DC Cormorants totaled 466 while Scaup and Ring-necked Duck flights went over 1,000 birds. Smaller flights of Snow Geese, Gadwall and Mallards trickled through and one flight of Shovelers totaled 28, mostly all male birds. Two Horned Grebes were nice to see, skimming over the water in full south bound mode, while a dozen Pied-billed held up in slack water behind a dike. Large pods of Ruddy Ducks were seen all up and down Loosahatchie bar and totaled approximately 90 birds. Osprey, 2 adult Bald Eagles, 9 Red-tailed Hawks and a single female Harrier sailed over and 40-50 Tree Swallows were swiftly heading down river in small loose groups through the whole period. The surprise, of the day, was a group of 13 migrating Meadowlarks flying down the river, a species I've never seen before actually in migration. I picked them up north of Loosahatchie Bar and watched them go under the bridge, I'd call the whole group Western because of overall pale coloration and wing beat. I've also never seen any of that species fly that far, anytime, anywhere! Good Birding !!! Jeff R. Wilson / TLBA 6298 Memphis-Arlington Road Bartlett, TN 38135 =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to SIGN YOUR MESSAGE with first and last name, CITY (TOWN) and state abbreviation. You are also required to list the COUNTY in which the birds you report were seen. The actual DATE OF OBSERVATION should appear in the first paragraph. _____________________________________________________________ To post to this mailing list, simply send email to: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx _____________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, send email to: tn-bird-request@xxxxxxxxxxxxx with 'unsubscribe' in the Subject field. ______________________________________________________________ TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx ------------------------------ Assistant Moderator Andy Jones Cleveland, OH ------------------------------- Assistant Moderator Dave Worley Rosedale, VA __________________________________________________________ Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ARCHIVES TN-Bird Net Archives at //www.freelists.org/archives/tn-bird/ EXCELLENT MAP RESOURCES Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp Tenn.Counties Map at http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/states/tennessee3.gif Aerial photos to complement google maps http://local.live.com _____________________________________________________________