Jan. 28, 2004 Pace Point area Benton and Henry Co. TN I met Bud Johnson, Mike Todd, Don Manning, Virginia and Tommy Curtis at Paris Landing to try for a few birds on some of their state and life lists and to look over the huge concentration of gulls. At 15 degrees in the morning, it was almost too cold for my sandals but once we got to birding my nose was cold but my toes were toasty;o) We started at Paris Landing and the gull flocks were intimidating. The problem being, there are no places to get close to most of these flocks. At the marina we had tons of Ring-billed Gulls but no other prospects. Eagle Creek and Port Road were disappointing in that everything was on the Point Side. Britton Ford produced 4 goose species as the 2 Ross's are still hanging in and we were treated with a small flock of Snow's and Blue's that circled around warily because of all the hunting going on around the refuge's edge. There were 2 Greater White-fronted trying to hide in with the Canada Geese. We ended the day with 21 species of waterfowl and gobs of Red-breasted Mergansers plus Hooded and 3 Common Mergansers but we were never out of sight or sound of Goldeneye. There are still big flocks of Greater Scaup plus a lot of Lesser Scaup. Also at Britton Ford, we watched 5 immature Bald Eagles taking turns diving on a crippled duck, until one finally snatched it from the water and was chased by the other 4. It dropped the bird and the bird was finally ferried off by another bird with the other 4 in pursuit, to the quicker belongs the spoils. At Big Sandy, we stopped by the eagle roost at mid day and I spotted a single dark bird and an adult Bald Eagle. Since one of the target birds was a Golden Eagle I decided to scope out the dark bird. It turned into an adult Golden and we enjoyed the bird as it flew and returned to the same perch numerous times and we saw it briefly at dusk as we watched 36 Bald Eagles come into the roost. We got there a little late so no telling how many are actually using this roost but generally 60-70 birds is about normal. At the Point, we had two groups of gulls which we estimated the total to be about 5,000, all sitting, sleeping and preening. We had only the expected 3 species but with birds flying all around you could sit all day and watch the turn over. No telling what could be found. On the Rocky Point side in the Big Sandy reach we had the adult and the immature Red-throated Loons every time we stopped to look. These birds are extremely hard to pick up but time scanning pays. We only found a single Pacific, the viewing could have been better but details for the ID were seen. It seems as if most of the loons are out in the TN River channel as we saw far fewer in the Big Sandy reach than I had counted on Sunday. There have to be still around because they are all in extreme wing molt and most can't fly. Pretty good birding with 3 of the 4 target birds found but I'll have to get up there and shift through all those gulls again for the Black-headed. Don Manning has birdied up there far longer than I have and he agreed he has never seen such a concentration of gulls. I have seen them this concentrated in a section before but never in every direction you look. 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 * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * ========================================================