February 22nd, 2019
Victor and I spent most of the day today birding in Lake County. We were
hoping for some breaks in the rain with a slightly better forecast for the
Northwest part of the State, but still ended up spending much of the day in
the car.
Thousands of ducks were in the flooded fields along the Great River Road
between Dyer and Lake Counties, appeared to be mostly Mallards but with
good numbers of Gadwalls, Northern Pintails, Northern Shovelers and
Green-winged Teals. A few each of Greater and Lesser Scaup, Common
Goldeneye and Canvasbacks were in the area as well.
At Jolly Landing (around 10 a.m.) we couldn’t find the Rough-leg that
Victor still needed for his State photo list, so we got directions from
Alan Troyer and slogged out to the middle of a large field where he had
good numbers of AMERICAN TREE SPARROWS in a brushy depression several weeks
ago. We soon found four or so still hanging around. They were very
responsive to playback and offered some photo opportunities.
Back in the car again, the adult female ROUGH-LEGGED HAWK had suddenly
materialized out of nowhere and came flying past in the same general area
as it usually hangs out.
A stop by the Reelfoot Airpark produced a ground feeding flock of
American Goldfinches and a good sized flock of Juncos. We picked out a bird
that we think is a good candidate for a young male OREGON JUNCO with a well
defined blackish hood, brownish back and salmon-pinkish sides. It seemed to
be well-marked enough to eliminate the “cismontanus” subspecies or a
possible intergrade.
We also noticed good numbers of RUSTY BLACKBIRDS around with a flock of
800 and a second flock of 165 at the Airpark, a different flock of around
500 just North of Tiptonville and a hundred or so scattered birds for a
conservative count of around 1500 for Lake County for the day.
Reelfoot Lake was down some on Bonaparte’s Gull numbers (we noticed quite
a few feeding in flooded fields so that may be where they are hanging out)
so we didn’t spend as much time glassing for Little Gulls. We had a flock
of 4 FORSTER’S TERNS feeding over the lake, as well as the usual thousands
of Ruddy Ducks, but nothing unexpected.
Ruben Stoll, Centerville Tennessee.
