June 8, 2002 Ensley Bottoms, North Lake Shelby Co. TN Thought I'd drop by the house to post this before trying to double up on Whistling Ducks in TN in one day.............. While at North Lake this morning, I had 5 Black-bellied Whistling-Ducks fly from the east end of the lake to the west end and disappear into the trees. Obvious white in the wings and all dark tail with feet trailing behind plus the goose like flight were the keys to picking these birds up and making sure they were not Fulvous. It was June 17, 1988, when I photographed 4 of these fine birds just a little north of North Lake. I found the second record for TN in Nov. 1985 at Shelby Farms and the last bird I've seen in TN was at Lauderdale Waterfowl Refuge Dec. 20, 1994. I'll head up to Reelfoot now and see if I can find the two Fulvous that I located last week that seem to be hanging in the area. I found both nests of Western Kingbirds have very small young. The birds in the east nest could barely hold their heads up and I believe the birds in the west nest were just hatching due to the way the one parent was acting but I did see a fuzzy head bobbing around. Last year the birds hatched out on the 17th in the east nest and the 24th in the west nest. I can't see either nest well enough to see how many young there are. The Black-necked Stilts have at least 4 broods hatched with one set looking to be about a week old and 2 other sets just a few days old while one set was just hatching this morning. Yellow-crowned Night-Herons and Green Herons are also ferrying food back to hungry young and Eastern Kingbirds were found on three nests. A Black-billed Cuckoo was seen along Riverport Road and another Yellow-billed was carrying food to a nest behind the pits. The Painted Bunting still sings early from the dead tree at the run out. One of the 2 leucistic Mallards seen last year has evidently managed to survive and was seen on McKellar Lake. In the raptor family there came two surprises, a hunting female Harrier represents only my 2nd for June in West TN. Remember all the birds that were seen two years ago in Lake Co. in July? This species has nested south of Memphis in Mississippi so maybe this bird might hang around and make for some hot days watching. An Osprey was seen fishing in the wet lands along Riverport Rd. The clear unmarked chest may indicate it to be an unmated second year bird just hanging out. At the pits I only saw one Semipalmated Sandpiper and one White-rumped Sandpiper other than the nesting Black-necked Stilts and Killdeer. Now let's see if I can get the other Whistling Duck this afternoon. ;o) Good Birding!!! Jeff R. Wilson OL' COOT / TLBA Bartlett Tenn. =================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 =========================================================