Birding was great around the Reelfoot area, with impressive numbers of both waders and shorebirds wherever habitat was found. An indication of the shorebird presence is that I had 6 locations today with at least 10 shorebird species, and I had Stilt Sandpipers at 7 locations, with a high of 14 in a wet area just south of Phillippy. Total shorebird species for the day was 17. Shorebird highlights were as follows: Piping Plover: two on Island 13. I spent about 3 hours on Island 13, and the Piping's were the last birds I found. They were down at the far end of the long pool. I didn't think I was going to find a Piping, when I heard a single "Peep-lo" from somewhere, it still took about 30 minutes more to locate a bird after I knew one was in the area. The way the pool is cut up it's hard to stay on the birds, and I originally thought the one bird was moving around but I finally had two birds in view at the same time, although they were never actually together. I got a decent shot or two of these little dolls if anyone is interested. Black-necked Stilt: Five at White Lake Refuge. They have pumped water back into White Lake, and the shorebirds are responding. Among these five were a male escorting a couple of very crisply marked juveniles. Ruddy Turnstone: Three on Island 13 Sanderling: Two on Tiptonville Bar and one on Island 13. Western Sandpiper: Scattered about, but very much outnumbered by Semi's. Dowitcher: Single Long-billed at State Line just north of Walnut Log, and one each Long and Short-billed traveling together on Island 13. On the wader front, the large concentration at White Lake seems to have diminished somewhat, but good concentrations of the expected species could be found practically anywhere in the area. Black Bayou is teeming with Snowy Egrets, and as Nancy previously reported the juvenile Tricolored is still in the area. I was there at about 2:00 this afternoon. I had hoped to see a White Ibis again at White Lake, or possibly a Wood Stork, but no luck with either. On another positive note, the Scissor-tails were successful in their nesting. The female had a recently fledged juvenile on the wires around the entrance to Cargill. The one youngster is all I saw, but I didn't spend much time in the area. Other birds of interest were an eclipse male Ring-necked Duck in a wet area south of Phillippy, and a Black and several Forster's Terns out from Champy's Pocket on the Lake. I saw several juvenile Least Terns while on Island 13, hopefully they've had a good year. The swallows are starting to pile up, things are just gonna get better and better! (If this has rambled, I don't think I'm over Island 13 yet) Good birding!!!!!!!! Mike Todd McKenzie, TN Carroll Co. mikectodd@xxxxxx =================NOTES TO SUBSCRIBER===================== The TN-Bird Net requires you to sign your messages with first and last name, city (town) and state abbreviation. ----------------------------------------------------- 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. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================