[tn-bird] Wet Weekend
- From: OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 2 Apr 2002 09:01:18 EST
March 30-31, 2002
I started up toward Reelfoot Friday night but was turned back in Tipton Co.
by torrential rains and flooded roads. I called ahead and was told that
highway 51 was underwater in a few places near Dyersburg. I visited Eagle
Lake Refuge Saturday morning and found that the river has finally covered the
refuge. Watching the river stages all week and seeing the three week rise
slowing slightly I was afraid that another year would pass without water
covering the refuge. It has been a few years since the spring floods had
recharged the land. The Mississippi RV rise from 6 foot to 30 foot has now
abated with a slight decline showing the last few days. This should give the
later migrating shorebirds some good flats if the water is held. Very little
was seen there except a token number of ducks and Great Blue Herons. An
Orange Crowned Warbler was found foraging in the rain and the Barn, Tree and
Rough-winged Swallows were out numbered by the Purple Martins.
At TVA Lake in Ensley Bottoms the Scaup numbered in the hundreds with just a
very few being of the Greater variety. A few Ring-billed and Bonaparte's fed
over the amorous Pied-billed Grebes. Blue-winged Teal, Gadwall, Hooded
Merganser, Mallards, Wood Ducks and Pied-billed Grebe pairs were found in the
road side wetlands off Riverport Road. Fewer Red-tailed Hawks were seen, the
Bald Eagle hunkered down in the nest during the rain, Kestrel and Loggerhead
Shrike are paired. A single Chimney Swift on Saturday was replaced by dozens
frolicking in the air after the rain stopped on Sunday. A few Golden Plovers
were in the plowed fields along with a couple of Pectoral Sandpipers and on
Sunday a pair of Black-necked Stilts appeared as if by magic, elegantly
standing in a puddle just large enough for two.
In North Mississippi I found many Golden Plovers in fields that produce birds
each year like clock work. They certainly favor certain fields over others
that appear to be the same but what do we know. About 30 miles south on the
levee I finally found a single Upland Plover strolling in the wet grasses on
Sunday. In a field just west of Walls, MS I found a large number of
Ring-billed and Bonaparte's Gulls and 7 Forster's Terns resting in a ditch.
On Mud Island I stopped to see if anything was moving over the bank full
Mississippi River and in an hour I saw only a few gulls and DC Cormorants, 2
Cooper's Hawks and a lone Turkey Vulture all traveling north. The resident
Purple Martins were being very quite and I could watch three different Robins
building nest from my vantage point, while two Mockingbirds argued off and on
about where the boundary line lay in the parking lot. I added a few wet birds
to the year list and I'm waiting for the big push that is building just to
our south to load us up with returnees.
Good Birding!!!
Jeff R. Wilson
OL' COOT / TLBA
Bartlett Tenn.
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