This afternoon I decided to take a quick trip to try and refind the Moorhead Gray Jay reported a few weeks back. Unfortunately, I still have not refound it. But, as I was leaving the area, I decided to stop by some crabapple trees to look for waxwings. A couple weeks ago, there were several Cedar Waxwings and a Robin at this location. Today, they was a flock of turkeys there sitting in the crabapple trees, eating berries. As I was watching the turkeys, I noticed a robin sized bird in one of the trees among the turkeys, and assuming it was the robin, I put my binoculars up. Immediately I realized it was a Varied Thrush! It was a gorgeous bird, and I got some great looks at it. The time was 4:15. The line of crabapples extends back from the road, so it's not always easy to see everything in these crabapples. I quickly lost the bird as it flew around, but soon relocated it in the adjacent yard to the east. It was feeding on the ground under a large pine in front of the house. It continued to fly back and forth between the crabapples and the ground. After 15 minutes I lost the bird for good, but presumably it's still around, because there are a lot of berries still on the trees, and a lot of pines for cover. Also, 2 yards to the east of the crabapples had a feeder, with a lot of seed on the ground, where numerous juncos were feeding, so the Thrush may be drawn to this yard as well.
The location is in north Moorhead, I believe Oakport township. I found it along Wall Street Ave. N. This is also a County Road, but my map doesn't say the number, and I've forgotten the exact number. I didn't get mileage from Hwy. 75, but looking at the map, it appears to be roughly 1.1 miles west of Hwy. 75. The house numbers to look for the bird at are 608 and 612 on the north side of Wall St. Ave. N. The line of crabapples are just to the west of these yards on the other side of a fence. Also here were 2 Cedar Waxwings in the crabapples, and a flock of 7 more waxwings that flew over, which I didn't see long enough to tell if they were Bohemians or not. This location is very close to where the Gray Jay had been seen, so if you go to look for this bird, don't skip looking for the Gray Jay also, although it hasn't been reported in quite some time. Good luck, Ben Fritchman, NDSU, Fargo, ND _________________________________________________________________ Search for grocery stores. Find gratitude. Turn a simple search into something more. http://click4thecause.live.com/search/charity/default.aspx?source=hmemtagline_gratitude&FORM=WLMTAG
