Today (Mon. 10/31) we spent three hours retracing many of John Ellis' steps as per his recent post regarding Wilkin County/Rothsay area bird observations.
We did NOT (alas) encounter any Longspurs (Smith's or otherwise), but we did see some other "good" birds: Sandhill Cranes (at least 500) -- they were high aloft and slowly organizing into vee's and heading to the southwest. Every time we tried counting them, we found the other person had discovered and was counting a different group of birds altogether, so we settled on a total of 500 (a conservative number, no doubt) Raptors: Northern Harriers, Red-tails, and two Rough-legged Hawks (the Rough-legs were clearly hanging and hovering near a pair of tractors which were working up a very wet farm field; we were astonished to see that twice one of them touched down within 10 yards behind a springtooth plow -- it would have been fun watching from the tractor cab!) Northern Shrike Snow Bunting (flock of 50) Bird On! --------------------------------- Dan & Sandy Thimgan Otter Tail Co. Battle Lake, MN
