[tn-bird] Re: Black-necked Stilt Population Explosion
- From: Robert <rwf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 01 Jul 2002 18:24:10 -0500
OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx wrote:
> Ensley Bottoms
> Shelby Co. TN
>
> Some time in the next week to 10 days you will be able
> to stand in one place at the pits and maybe with a scope,
> count over 200 Black-necked Stilts at one time.
Jeff, where is it that you are calling the "pits". Ensley
Bottoms is a gigantic place.
http://topozone.com/map.asp?z=15&n=3884391&e=760374&s=25
As I drive west down Riverport Road, there are several delicious
bogs along the left hand side of the road. These are full of
Green Heron, Indigo Buntings, Eastern Bluebirds and Eastern
Kingbirds, along with various types of ducks and geese.
We drive to the T.H. Allen Steam Plant on Riverport Rd.
and there are two open "tailing ponds" to the right of it at
the end of a dead end road. Here we have seen Great Egrets,
a Red Tailed Hawk being chased away by hundreds of small birds,
lots of acrobatic Barn Swallows, with Common Grackle and
Brown-Headed Cowbirds by the dozen.
Back across the Riverport Rd., just south of the Maintenance
Sheds, there are several large ( fetid ) pit-like open areas
where they compost the sludge in the open air. Here there are
Red Winged Black Birds, some Killdeer, Mourning Doves and
Eastern Meadowlarks.
Directly west of the Steam Plant, behind the Maxwell Building
at the end of a small dirt road, are several fenced-in tailing
ponds, surrounded by heavy brush... I once saw a fearless
local, drowning a worm in there(!) behind the locked fence.
At the southern-most part of this entire area, at the end of
Riverport Road ( what Mapquest calls Riverport Road... ), men
were farming in tractors just north of something labelled a
"Wildlife Management Area". There is an undeveloped dirt road
into this area.
I know that south of all this is North Lake, accessed by Shelby
Drive. And then even further south of North Lake is Horn Lake,
just across the Mississippi border.
There is of course a gigantic earthen levee between Ensley Bottoms
and the Mississippi River.
Where is it that you are calling the Ensley Bottom pits?
I know I'm not the only one who wants to know.
Robert Fowler
Shelby County
Memphis TN
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