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 !! 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