[TN-Bird] Great Black-backed Gull, Swans, & etc. KY Lake 12/26/04
- From: <birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 26 Dec 2004 20:24:30 -0600
12/26/04
KY Lake area incl. Paris Landing State Park, Britton Ford Unit of TNWR, and
Big Sandy Unit (Pace Point) of TNWR
Henry Co.
With the recent arctic blast, I was anxious to see what might be present on
KY Lake, as was Jeff Wilson whom I ran into early morning at Paris Landing.
All shallow bays on the lake were frozen over, but it was apparent when I
1st got to Paris Landing, that there was a massive number of birds around.
Gulls were literally everywhere, in the thousands upon thousands.
While scanning the gulls on the now re-exposed island out from Paris
Landing, I noticed a massive gull sleeping that had the classic checkerboard
pattern to the upperparts and white underparts of a Great Black-backed Gull.
This bruiser finally picked its head up to reveal the equally massive black
bill. Thousands of gulls were in the area, with some odd Herring's thrown
in, but this was the only rarity. I had a sneaking suspicion Jeff might be
in the area, so I gave him a call. When we talked, and he said he was
looking at more gulls than you can believe, sure enough, he was sitting
across over at the Marina looking at the gulls on the ice. Jeff had seen
what he thought was a Great Black-back early that morning, so we went back
over to look at the island. We had great looks at the 1st-winter Great
Black-back, as it walked around on the island, and then flew out to rob the
1st unlucky gull it saw with a fish! Jeff got some decent long-range pix of
this most-impressive bird I hope, as it was beyond my capabilities.
The area back toward Pace Point was literally swarming with birds, so we
decided to head that way, with a stop at Britton Ford. Britton Ford was
being hunted, but there were thousands of ducks and geese out in the
distance on the ice. We could see them well enough to be teased, but not to
do any good, so we went on around. As we were heading towards the
observation platform, (at the little bay just north of there) Jeff noticed
some white birds with the ducks way out on the ice. These turned out to be a
flock of at least 24 Swans. They were at least 3/4 mile away, so we couldn't
get definitive looks at the birds to nail an ID. It appeared though that it
was a mixed species flock of both Trumpeter and Tundra Swans. A smaller
immature bird had the pattern of a Tundra, with a grayish head and neck and
white body, whereas immature Trumpeters remain sooty grayish all-over, as a
couple of birds in the flock were. We had hoped to see them get airborne, to
clinch the ID's, but got our fill of these magnificent birds and moved on.
We got some shots, and I think Jeff got some decent ones. There were a LOT
of Canada Geese at Britton Ford, most likely with Cacklers among them, if
you can get a look at them.
Back roads are still pretty slick up here, but we eased into the Big Sandy
refuge, and on around to Rocky Point. The road to Pace Point is still closed
at Bufflehead Pond where the road splits. Hopefully it will re-open soon, as
we could see the area was literally alive with birds. I've said this a
couple of times, but today was the most waterfowl and gulls both that I've
ever seen in the area. And this area gets a lot of birds on a regular basis.
We looked through thousands of ducks (at least 1000 Common Goldeneye alone)
looking for a Long-tailed Duck or something, but happily settled on a couple
of male Common Mergansers that were pure eye-candy. You could look through
these birds all day and not begin to see everything. Nothing else out of the
ordinary, but it's always a treat to see Red-breasted and Hooded Merg's
displaying (just not to each other). Canvasbacks are here in force, and
Greater Scaup can be picked out of the masses as well, as can a Redhead or
two.
We finished the day off by going through the (once again) thousands of gulls
that were coming into the ice late in the afternoon. This produced an adult
Lesser Black-backed Gull, our 1st in the area in some time. One of the
biggest surprises of the day though, was the lack of loons. We had a total
of 15 loons for the day, less than 1/10 of just a so-so day usually this
time of the year. The Eagle roost was pretty quite on the way out, with only
7 birds visible. We wound the day up by watching a Barred Owl take a big
rat, within yards of the truck.
I've posted a couple of long-range Swan shots at:
http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/image/37908920 ; just click "next" to see the
2nd shot.
Good birding!!
Mike Todd
McKenzie, TN
Carroll Co.
birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pbase.com/mctodd
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