11/14/02 Halls area & Lauderdale Waterfowl Refuge Lauderdale Co. After working all night I decided what better way to wind down than making the hour trip up to Lauderdale to look at the waterfowl in the area. On the way over, the fields recently flooded for duck hunting were still hosting good numbers of shorebirds. One field just east of Halls in the Forked Deer bottom had a surprising collection of 8 shorebird species. Among the Killdeer and Snipe, were 19 Long-billed Dowitchers, almost all of which were juveniles. Also present was a single Pectoral Sandpiper, along with Least Sandpipers, Dunlins, and both Yellowlegs. In this same field my 1st Rusty Blackbirds of the season were feeding. Long-billed Dowitchers (4) and Dunlin were also seen at Lauderdale, and Greater Yellowlegs were seen in 3 other fields in the area, along with many Wilson's Snipe. Lauderdale is always a treat this time of year. You could spend a lot of time here and still miss a lot of the birds. I stayed for about an hour, just going back and forth through the mass of birds. I had 17 species of waterfowl, with a couple of more that were no doubt in the mix somewhere. Geese were represented by a total of 9 individuals, but these broke down nicely to 3 Snow, 3 Blue, and 3 nice adult Ross's. The only real surprise duckwise was a female Greater Scaup among the few Scaup, among the many Ring-necks. Good birding!!!!! Mike Todd McKenzie, TN Carroll Co. mikectodd@xxxxxx =================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. * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Topographical Maps located at http://topozone.com/find.asp * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * Visit the Tennessee Ornithological Society web site at http://www.tnbirds.org * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * TN-Bird Net Owner: Wallace Coffey, Bristol, TN jwcoffey@xxxxxxxxxx (423) 764-3958 =========================================================