Nov. 7, 2004 Henry and Benton Co. TN After meeting up with Mike Todd and Ken Allen and counting over 500 Common Loons around Pace Point on Friday afternoon (over 400 while standing at one place) which evidently had just arrived as Ken had been there on Friday afternoon and found only 20-30 birds, I decided to stay over rather than go to Reelfoot on Sunday. Ken and I worked the west side from Paris Landing to the Big Sandy flats searching for something hidden in the masses. Out in the Eagle Creek area, we had 20 plus Forster's Terns, 100 plus Ring-billed, 20 Herring Gulls and lots of ducks using what little flats were present. The best birds there were a couple of Western Sandpipers, a single male Brewer's Blackbird that Ken needed for his TN List and a single Franklin's Gull. At Paris Landing, the island out from the bridge was still under water and gulls were scattered all over the lake. A few pods of Common Loons could be seen in the distance but nothing that peaked our interest. There was little to see from Port Road, a few Common Loons and regular gulls, but at Trailer Road, we had a group of 87+ Common Loons, diving and calling less than a 75 yards from shore. We could see every detail as they fished and frolicked, from the beads of water rolling off their backs to their red/brown eyes that glared at us. They were in various states of plumage from young to old, from near breeding to winter. Another Franklin's Gull rested on the water at this location. At Britton Ford, there was a horde of ducks, but unfortunately just as we arrived a boat roared into the restricted area and proceeded to flush all the birds to very distant locations making it hard to see what was there. The boat fished in the area the whole time we were there but we tallied 14 species of waterfowl. Crows were seen in unprecedented numbers feeding and raising a raucous cry when disturbed. The farmer again destroyed the LeConte's Sparrow habitat, it is a shame this cannot be delineated to keep this from happening as it is the easiest place to find and see a number of these jewels in TN. I would gladly pay whatever the price that he could make off these marginally productive areas to see it managed for these birds but.......We had Vesper and White-crowned Sparrows in the mix of the regular wintering sparrows. The best or at least most unexpected bird of the day was an immature Broad-winged Hawk that allowed us to view it both front and back for an extended period of time. There were high flying Red-tails everywhere with one dark morph western in the bunch. At the Big Sandy Flats, we were stymied again by high water although we saw hundreds of Green-winged Teal at this location in among the other regular species. There were a few Forster's Tern at this location; we found them everywhere on the day. 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. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net is owned by the Tennessee Ornithological Society Neither the society(TOS) nor its moderator(s) endorse the views or opinions expressed by the members of this discussion group. Moderator: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN wallace@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================