[TN-Bird] Thayer's Gull, Loons, Long-tailed Duck; KY Lake

  • From: <birder1@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • To: <tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sun, 18 Nov 2007 23:28:36 -0600

11-18-07
KY Lake area (Henry Co)
Pace Point/Rocky Point area, Paris Landing, Eagle Creek, Port Rd

Following an always enjoyable day birding with Jeff yesterday, I met Michael 
Bernard in the fog this morning at Big Sandy, to see what we could come up 
with, and maybe get a State bird or two for him. When we got to the Refuge, 
we ran into the Harboldt's, and all enjoyed another great day on KY Lake. 
Conditions were ideal today after the fog burned off, with practically no 
wind or heat shimmer. You could literally see birds on the water well over a 
mile away.

We started off at Rocky Point, with about 300 loons scattered out before us. 
Many, all Common of course, were very close to shore. Eventually I was able 
to pick up an adult Red-throated Loon in the distance, which everyone was 
able to get satisfactory looks at, and got a TN bird out of the way quick 
for Michael. I Keep hoping Jeff's Eared Grebe will show back up, but nothing 
fit the bill. While standing there at Rocky Point, a Lapland Longspur called 
as it came over, a 1st for me at that location, though we had several 
yesterday near Reelfoot.

From Rocky Point we traveled to Pace Point, hoping for a better gull showing 
than my last trip; we weren't disappointed. The spit going out to Pace Point 
was covered in birds, including some that we couldn't see from our initial 
vantage point overlooking the bay going into Pace. The large diver flock was 
present here as usual, but still holds nothing of particular interest.

While scanning through the Herring Gulls that were there, I was lucky enough 
to pick out one adult bird that clearly had a dark eye, in direct comparison 
to the pale-eyed adult Herring's on either side of it. Initially I couldn't 
see the birds wings as it was facing us, and though it wasn't much smaller 
than the Herring's, it had the more rounded head and in particular shorter 
bill with gently rounded culmen expected of Thayer's. Though the mantle tone 
of Thayer's can be slightly darker than on American Herring, this wasn't 
noticeable in the sunny conditions we had today. The legs were subtly 
brighter pink than the adjacent birds, but not substantially. After watching 
the bird for about 30 minutes, it finally got cleared enough that when it 
was preening I could see the underwing pattern of P10 on the far wing. There 
was a small black subterminal spot near the tip of P10, then a large white 
mirror, and the remainder of the visible primary was very pale gray, barely 
darker than the white mirror. The nearby adult Herring Gulls showed the 
expected underwing pattern on P10 of a white mirror surrounded on both sides 
by black.

I made the mistake of not pressing for photos at the time (my 1st adult 
Thayer's in TN), as there were gulls that we hadn't been able to see yet 
that were blocked by trees. We drove around to the point, and before we got 
back over to where this group of gulls was at, the Merlin express came 
through and cleared out all the gulls on that spit. Some came back, some 
went to Pace Point itself to join the other gulls, and many just left. We 
didn't see the Thayer's again. There were two Merlins working the Pace Point 
area, a male and female, and when they weren't flushing everything in the 
area, they would hassle each other. The only other gull of note at Pace was 
an adult Lesser Black-backed. Twice at Pace Point we had single Purple 
Finches fly over, and two times on the way out we had small flocks of Purple 
Finches feeding in trees along the roadside. After seeing all the reports, 
I'm glad to finally get some.

We made a quick trip back to Rocky Point, and there were still loons 
scattered as far as you could see. One very distant bird was surely a 
Pacific, but just too far for any kind of a look. It was well after noon 
when we finally left the Big Sandy Refuge area, and as Michael was a little 
pressed for time, we didn't hit Britton Ford (which I intended to do this 
afternoon, but ran out of time myself). Eagle Creek and Little Eagle Creek 
didn't produce anything of note, so we were off to Paris Landing, hoping for 
a final chance at Franklin's Gull on the island. This was a bust, since 
there was nothing on the island but an adult Bald Eagle.

After Michael left for Nashville, the Harboldt's and I checked out from the 
State Park at Paris Landing. One of the 1st birds we saw was a sleeping 
female Long-tailed Duck. After watching this bird make several flights 
around the area, before finally flying out of sight back north over the 
bridge, I decided this must be the same bird Jeff had last weekend at 
Britton Ford. His bird was very restless as well. We spent a lot of time 
just enjoying birds on the glasslike water out from Paris Landing, including 
a couple of Common Goldeneye, the 1st of the season. It was too late when I 
got to Port Rd, as light was already fading, but I did get a count of 606 
loons. I couldn't make anything out of these birds but Common, but most 
distant birds just weren't ID'able by this time past the loon level. A 
soulful serenade by Great Horned Owls as I was leaving was a nice end to a 
great day.

I've added a few shots to my winter '07 gallery from the last couple of 
days, if anyone's interested. These include a dark-morph Red-tail from 
Lauderdale, as well as Rusty Blackbird, very close Common Loon, Merlin, 
Long-tailed Duck, and Purple Finch. The new images start here:
http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/image/89094559 , or you can just go to the 
gallery here: http://www.pbase.com/mctodd/winter_20072008

Happy Thanksgiving and Good Birding to All !!

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

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  • » [TN-Bird] Thayer's Gull, Loons, Long-tailed Duck; KY Lake