Chris Hockema and I toured Dakota, Goodhue, and Wabasha Counties today in search of Buff-breasted Sandpipers and Olive-sided Flycatchers.
DAKOTA COUNTY: Jirik: 2 distant Buff-breasted Sandpipers 3 American Golden Plovers Castle Rock: 4 or 5 Buff-breasted Sandpipers (found by driving the gravel road that parallels 3 to the West) 1 one-legged American Golden-Plover Farmington: one Eurasian Collared-Dove on a power line along Division St. between Oak and Elm GOODHUE COUNTY: Pond at turnoff to Treasure Island Casino and Prairie Island Nuclear Power Plant: 10ish Least Sandpipers 1 Semipalmated Plover 1 Caspian Tern several hundred American White Pelicans Treasure Island Sewage Ponds (aah! Birding a sewage pond between a Nuclear Power Plant and a Casino - that's getting back to nature!): 1st Winter Bonaparte's Gull Dedrick's secret spot along Canon River bike trail: N. Waterthrush WABASHA COUNTY: 1 Juvenile Peregrine Falcon - flyby at CR 84, 1 mile east of it's southern terminus with HWY 61. Oh, yeah, Olive-sided Flycatchers: We saw snags, we saw birds, we saw birds on snags. But we saw no Olive-sided Flycatchers. We did have a lot of fun though. Dedrick Benz Winona, MN
