Hi all! My husband, Joel and I took the week off and have been birding a great deal. Yesterday morning we drove from the Twin Cities to Northwestern MN. Although yesterday was cold & windy we managed to see quite a few birds. Hightlights included:
ROTHSAY: Wilson's Phalarope, Marbled Godwit, Common Snipe & a pair of Northern Pintails. (All these birds were seen along 300th Avenue between 200th St. & 190th St.) The male phalarope was especially vivid in his breeding plummage. FELTON PRAIRIE: A flock of 30+ male Bobolinks (Along Clay County 108) The Boblinks were the most prevelant bird we saw here. HAMDEN SLOUGH NWR: Canvasback, Redheads, Ring-necked Ducks, Red-necked Grebes, Black Terns, Vesper Sparrow, and a Great Horned Owl that came flying in at dusk. (All seen at the southern end of the refuge.) We spent the night in Detroit Lakes and birded Tamarac NWR & Felton Prairie today. The weather was much nicer (over all). Hightlights were: TAMARAC NWR: Started out on a high note when we stopped to see a Broad-winged Hawk in a tree. Joel recognized the call of the Black-billed Cuckcoo and we persisted until we saw it. It was in a tree very close to us and sat long enough to get it in the scope! A lifer for us. Also saw Golden-winged Warblers (and heard them everywhere), Chestnut-sided Warblers, a single Magnolia Warbler, Osprey, 5 Trumpter Swans, numerous White Pelicans, Common Loons a single female Hooded Merganser and an Osprey. (We saw most of these birds on the south end of the refuge.) FELTON PRAIRIE: Drove back to try for the Chestnut-sided Longspur to no avail. However we did see Savannah Sparrows, Grasshopper Sparrows, a pair of Greater Prairie Chickens, Bobolinks, Horned Larks and numerous Marbled Godwits. It was a great two days of birding despite yesterday's cool temperatures. Good birding! Lisa Swanstrom -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070526/b25051f9/attachment.html
