Victor and I spent several days wandering around the Western part of the
state from November 29th/December 2nd, starting at Kentucky Lake and
hitting Reelfoot area, Bogota WMA, Tipton County and the pits in Memphis.
There are a few highlights worth mentioning here, though overall the
birding was slow paced and yielded expected species only.
A RED-THROATED LOON was seen from Pace Point and then again from Rocky
Point on Kentucky Lake on 11/29/16. Several PINE WARBLERS and a PALM
Warbler at Bennet's Creek Overlook, a ROSS'S GOOSE and 15 FORSTER'S TERNS
at Eagle Creek, and 3 LESSER BLACK-BACKED GULLS at Paris Landing were nice,
but not unexpected for Kentucky Lake.
Also on 11/29/16, a first winter FRANKLIN'S GULL was found feeding in
fields on the Obion County side of Reel-foot Lake with Ring-billed and
Bonaparte's Gulls. A very strange, runty Ring-billed Gull was also there
with dark gray legs and a drooped bill like a Laughing Gull (hybrid?) but
we'll need to review the photos some more on that one.
An ORANGE-CROWNED WARBLER and a MARSH WREN were seen at Kirby Pocket.
On 11/30/16 we had a late BARN SWALLOW feeding out over Reelfoot Lake at
dawn in Lower Blue Basin.
We then headed up to Reelfoot Airpark where we had 75 species, mostly
good numbers of songbirds, including 2 BROWN CREEPERS an ORANGE-CROWNED and
a PINE WARBLER, a few LAPLAND LONGSPURS, one AMERICAN TREE SPARROW, 2
PURPLE FINCH, and a good count of CEDAR WAXWINGS. (We counted 1497, but
that was very conservative.)
A brief stop by the Longspur field that used to have good ariristida
grass (North of Tiptonville) and Smith's Longspurs didn't look too
promising, but we decided to walk it anyway.
We were almost done when a small group of Longspurs flew over, possibly
flushed up, and gave us brief glimpses of one that was more buffy colored
overall, flashing white in the wings and tail, but the diagnostic, slow,
long rattle of the SMITH'S LONGSPUR was clearly heard.
We did not see the birds come down, but about an hour later Mark Greene
was able to find the bird again at the same location.
We then headed to Obion County, where we spent some time with close to
3000 LAPLAND LONGSPURS that we found in large corn stubble fields along
Hwy. 45W.
Also plenty of HORNED LARKS and AMERICAN PIPITS were scattered throughout
the area.
Also in Obion County, 140 SANDHILL CRANES were seen flying into Hopin
Refuge from feeding areas to the North.
12/1/16 The usual birds were seen at Bogota WMA in Dyer County, including
a LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE, good numbers of BALD EAGLES(7) and REDTAILS, with a
nice, continuing dark morph HARLAN'S RED-TAILED HAWK.
The highlight here was nearly half a dozen LECONTE'S SPARROWS that were
still in the field where Mark had reported them last week.
Also on December 1st, at Randolph Landing in Tipton County we had a
NORTHERN ROUGH-WINGED SWALLOW flying over the Mississippi River at dusk
(headed into Arkansas) and a HOUSE WREN scolding from the underbrush.
Several very large flocks of SNOW and ROSS'S GEESE were headed South on
the West side of the MS. River.
This morning (12-2-16) we birded at the pits in Memphis for a while, but
had nothing unusual, with highlights being a KRIDER'S HAWK, A HOUSE WREN
and BROWN CREEPER.
Ruben Stoll, Centerville TN.
