[TN-Bird] Shorebirds and Black Terns Moving Today

July 29, 2006
Ensley Bottoms and Mississippi River
Shelby Co. TN
 
Even though the wind at ground level was out of the southwest this AM,  
shorebirds were dropping in and picking up and leaving at the pits. Not a lot 
of  
movement but with the numbers present and the way they were acting, quite a few 
 had come in on the midnight express. They were nervous and spread out when I 
 arrived and a Red-tailed got them up in large amoeba like flocks tumbling in 
the  air. I got a few photos of them as they whizzed by.
 
There were 14 species at the pits. On the river, there were small groups of  
shorebirds scattered everywhere, I added 7 Ruddy Turnstone playing on a rock  
jetty along with 17 Lesser Golden-Plovers that stopped briefly on Dacus  Bar. 
I had one Sanderling at the pits and 3 on Dacus Bar. There were 3 Greater  
Yellowlegs at the pits and 2 on the river along with 7 Black-necked Stilts. Two 
 
groups of Stilt Sandpipers (3-4) dropped in for a rest at the pits but were 
soon  airborne again and heading south.
 
Total Shorebird species today - 15..........
 
A big surprise was photographing a Least Bittern perched 12 feet up in  a 
willow tree in a dry area at the pits. On the little sand spit out from Mud  
Island, that the river keeps inundating and re-exposing, there were over 60  
Black 
Terns in various plumages, adult, immature and transitional.  
Good Birding  !!!

Jeff R. Wilson / TLBA
6298 Memphis-Arlington Road
Bartlett, TN  38135



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