I birded Koochiching County and some of Itasca county on Friday and = Saturday to finish off my goal of getting at least 100 species in each of = the 87 counties. Koochiching doesn't seem to get birded much so for you = county listers I'll mention a few locations.=20
The roads I birded were from Kim Eckert's book those that were south of = MN11 and West of MN 71. The roads were in pretty good shape through many = bogs interspersed with wooded areas. I heard 3 Connecticut warblers = calling which was one of my target birds. I also found a Yellow-bellied = Flycatcher singing. Overall I found 16 species of warbler (out of 22 = potential according to Kim's Book). Le Conte's Sparrows were calling in = many of the wet grassy fields. The strangest was an American White Pelican = who was swimming in one of the ditches in the middle of one of the bogs. = He may have been injured but he did fly a short distance when the car = startled him.=20 Other places were the State Park, so minutes or so west of International = falls. Good woods there with a good number of woods birds even though I = visited in the afternoon in the rain.=20 International Falls has sewage ponds that had a few species of ducks (and = some babies) but only a Killdeer in spite of a nice sand bar. If you want any more details, just ask Rick Hoyme Hennepin Co
