[TN-Bird] Slim pickings at KY Lake; 11/4 & 11/6

From: <birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 6 Nov 2007 15:59:06 -0600
11/4/07
Henry Co
Pace Point vicinity
I spent a few hours around the Pace Point area on Sunday morning. Loons were 
scattered around everywhere, but no real concentrations. The raft of divers was 
still growing around Pace Point, but nothing unusual in the mix yet. The field 
that hosted LeConte's Sparrows early last winter, still has some nice panicum 
around the perimeter of the strip of standing corn, and I flushed at least one 
LeConte's. This is the field just below and north of the new observation 
platform.

The highlight of the morning was watching a tiny little male Merlin that was 
'playing' around the Pace Point area. I never saw it really doing any hunting, 
but it would (in typical Merlin fashion) harass just about anything that came 
near it. I watched him for about an hour, and during this time he would 
alternate perches between an exposed perch on one of the spits going out to 
Pace, and a concealed perch on Pace Point itself. Merlins are always a treat, 
as I see Peregrines much more often around this area. 

11/6/07
Henry Co.
Pace Point over to Paris Landing

Conditions were terrible this morning. The heat shimmer was atrocious, and the 
high-wind was white-capping everything; it felt like winter birding on KY Lake 
today. I only saw maybe 20 loons all day, and most of them were just distant 
blurs. No doubt I just wasn't seeing most of the birds due to the conditions. I 
couldn't stay for the afternoon line-up, I'm sure it would have been a 
different story. A winter adult Red-throated was in close enough to be seen 
from Rocky Point though. The extensive white face and thin neck was the way I 
could pick it up, a gray-necked immature would have been largely invisible 
today. Horned Grebe numbers are still growing, but still no large Grebes (any 
day now hopefully?) Good numbers of gulls were sitting around various places, 
but I only saw the 3 expected species, as well as numerous Forster's Terns.  

The bay below the observation deck at Britton Ford is finally getting a few 
ducks, but not much variety yet (and no Canvasbacks as of yet in the area). 
Shorebird habitat is still pretty much nonexistent, and today I saw no 
shorebirds other than a handful of Killdeer. Amazingly, I am yet to see a 
Dunlin this fall!

A little more of a cold front should be pushing through, hopefully pushing more 
birds down to us. Maybe the weekend will be more productive, but it will 
probably be next week before I get back over there.

Good Birding!!

Mike Todd
McKenzie, TN
birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
www.pbase.com/mctodd




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[TN-Bird] Slim pickings at KY Lake; 11/4 & 11/6

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