[TN-Bird] Ensley Report
- From: OLCOOT1@xxxxxxx
- To: tn-bird@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Mon, 8 Aug 2005 08:52:14 EDT
August 6, 2005
Ensley Bottoms
Southwest Corner
Shelby Co. TN
After my river adventure Sunday morning, I met Mike Todd at Ensley to look
for the stint, and were later joined by Kevin Calhoon and Judy Newsome,
unfortunately we had no luck. The migration witnessed on the river, carried on
at
the pits with the numbers halved from Saturday, possibly taking the stint
with it. We did have birds dropping in and actually had more birds at dusk than
we started out with earlier. Some birds dropped in and then continued their
trips while others stayed. There was a large increase in Least Sandpipers which
elected to go to roost at the river, in 2 huge groups (3000 plus birds) as
we stood in awe of the numbers leaving all at once, over our heads, like
someone had given a signal.
We had lost the Stilt Sandpipers present on Saturday but 2 birds finally
fell in calling softly and we later located a stunning immature in slick
plumage. On Sunday, I had immature birds of all the species with the most
impressive
being a long billed brightly colored Western Sandpiper that fed 30 feet away
from us at one of the pits. We were able to hear the different calls as the
birds came in from long journeys to the wake up, lets go calls of the birds
leaving for the coast, they are quite different.
As it has been lately we need more water, the down pour on Saturday evening
soaked into the ground with no run off and you could see no evidence it had
even rain on Sunday.
Good Birding!!!
Jeff R. Wilson
OL'COOT / TLBA
Bartlett, TN
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