On the Way to Yazoo City

This morning before leaving Memphis on a birding vacation south to New Orleans, we left Cosmo the dog at the Pleasant View Kennel, where we are comfortable with the handlers. We got our rental car, a snappy Volkswagon Jetta and headed south on Interstate 55 which goes through Mississippi towards New Orleans. Plan A for today was to bird our way down to Yazoo City, MS and stay there for the night. Plan B was to continue tomorrow morning on the way to New Orleans.

Birding at 70 miles/hour on the expressway is difficult, so we got off of the expressway at Batesville, MS and drove the rest of the day on the smaller state highways. There we saw a huge flock of white and black Snow Geese in the tall grass of a farmer's field. There were more than a thousand birds in the flock. The Snow Geese were either a white morph (totally white) or dark morph (black/gray and white). We got out of the car and studied the whole field. We pulled our spotting scope from the trunk. There were plenty of room to use it in the huge flock we saw spread out before us.

On the power lines next to the road, we saw lots of American Kestrel. Thes birds bounce their tails as they balance in the wind. We love to see the feathers on the side of its head look like Elvis' sideburns. Robert made a joke about seeing one holding a guitar.

After eating lunch in Clarksdale, MS we drove the rest of the afternoon to Yazoo Coty and arrived around 4pm. Birds we saw along the highway were:

• Black Vulture
• Great Blue Heron
• American Kestrel
• Northern Harrier
• Red Tailed Hawk
• Loggerhead Shrike
• Killdeer
• Mallard
• Mourning Doves
• Common Grackles
• Belted Kingfisher
• Ringed Billed Gulls

  We got a room in Yazoo City. We were tired, so we walked across the parking lot and ate really mediocre Mexican food for dinner. The salsa was bland. We finished and went back to the hotel.

  We are having trouble uploading the pictures to this blog.

  Robert and Berry