June 23, 2002 Ensley Bottoms Shelby Co. TN Sunday, I tried to out wait the mystery pair of Western Kingbirds but the situation has not changed with them. Again I had 6 adults in view at one time. Four adults are busy keeping up with the now 7 fledglings, one adult just hangs around feeding itself and having brief encounters with the other pairs that usually end up in just a flurry in the air and a face off. The sixth adult disappears for hours at a time and I believe occupies a third nest somewhere. The time spent was also used to locate where the adults have the young stashed. The young from the east nest are strewn about with two still on the tower but fairly near the nest, one on a fence line just to the east of the nest tower and another all the way out to the pines that border the road in front of the plant. Two of the young from the west nest were being fed on the west end of the fence in front of the plant and a third was using the high wires just in front of the transformers behind this fence. I took more time with the Black-necked Stilts Sunday and after many counts and recounts came up with 141 spread mostly in two pits with nests and young at all stages. This protracted and expanding on the nesting period is due to a lot of birds going past us and then getting their nests disturbed and falling back to the old reliable pits. We get a double hump in numbers but this has been the biggest hump yet. Can you imagine how high the numbers will soar with all those chicks hatching; it will break all records for the area. The high water on the Mississippi River had a lot to do with it. I still had 5 Least Sandpipers and a scraggly Pectoral but no sign of the Short-billed Dowitcher. The steady north wind on Saturday pushed a lot of birds through. I checked the clay pits in Arkansas but all the pits were full of water and held nothing of interest. Good Birding!!! Jeff R. Wilson OL' COOT / TLBA Bartlett Tenn. =================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 =========================================================