July 31, 2015Great River Road, Dyer County
I spent part of the afternoon visiting the mudflats along the Great River Road
(south of the jct. with Hwy 104) caused by the receding waters of flooded
cropland. The water is receding quickly and much of the area has already dried
out quickly. It will continue to do so very rapidly. I've been birding these
areas for 25 years and it still always amazes me how quickly these areas dry
out once the waters start receding. The sun pulls the water out very rapidly. I
had 15 species of wind birds. The following were tallied in about an hour and a
half of scoping:
Great Blue Heron - 25
Great Egret - 100
Red-tailed Hawk - 2
Black-necked Stilt - 15
Black-bellied Plover - 1 (FOS)
Semipalmated Plover - 12
Piping Plover - 1 (Likely the same bird that I heard on 7/29 near this
location. Bird was feeding way out on the mudflats.)
Spotted Sandpiper - 65
Solitary Sandpiper - 1
Greater Yellowlegs - 20
Lesser Yellowlegs - 10 (FOS)
Stilt Sandpiper - 1 (FOS)
Sanderling - 4
Least Sandpiper - 250+
Pectoral Sandpiper - 1200+
Semipalmated Sandpiper - 25
Short-billed Dowitcher - 1 (FOS)
Wilson's Phalarope - 1 (FOS) (The bird was way out on the mudflats but looked
to be a female.)
Least Tern - 5
Yellow-billed Cuckoo - 1 (heard calling from the other side of the road)
Eastern Kingbird - 2
At Ernest Rice WMA, the big group of waders had shrunk by 90% since Wednesday.
There were now less than 200 birds total, mostly Great Egrets with a handful of
Great Blue Herons and Snowy Egrets. There were no Little Blue Herons or Am.
White Pelicans. The only shorebirds I saw here were 18 Spotted Sandpipers.
Yesterday, I had a Peregrine Falcon flying high up in the sky over my office in
Trenton in Gibson Co.. As I was walking out after work I heard Purple Martins
overhead and finally I saw a spec in the sky that looked like a raptor. A
closer look with the binoculars showed it to be a Peregrine!
I also had a Cooper's Hawk yesterday just down the road from my house, west of
Trenton in Gibson Co.
Shorebirds are coming through - get out and see them as they pass through on
their southward journey!
Good birding!
Mark GreeneTrenton, TNGibson County
