October 5, 2003 Ensley Bottoms Shelby Co. TN After searching all morning for the Mottled Duck at the pits, I finally located the bird on the way out of the area off of Riverport Rd. The bird is still feeding with a large group of Mallards and was seen in the large open water just east of the Corps of Engineers location on the south side of Riverport. The bird was hard to pick out as the group was feeding in and out of the vegetation and there is no way to get very close at this point. I did manage to get a couple of photos. There was a movement of ducks over night, as today I added 2 Ring-necked Ducks, 1 Pintail and 3 Wigeon while looking for the Mottled. I had one group of 71 White Pelicans today and there was a slow steady passing of raptors. Two Peregrines were tallied as one immature motored by without much of a look at the wind birds below. Another adult Peregrine was hunting over on Presidents Island and keeping the pigeons upset all morning. I went over to the Island at 1:30 to see if I could get a shot as the bird kept perching on one of the structures and that is when I found the duck. Evidently the peregrine had the Eurasian Collared-Doves all shook up also because they had grouped up into three huge flocks. I left the island with a count of 473+EUCD. That tops the 174, my previous high that we counted one day in east Memphis. Are there any larger concentrations in Tennessee? The shorebird numbers were down again today although the numbers of Wilson's Snipe doubled over night from 1 to 2;o) Good Birding!!! Jeff R. Wilson OL'COOT / TLBA Bartlett, TN =================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 =========================================================