As I mentioned in my previous e-mail, my parents and I took a 4-week birding vacation in western and northern Minnesota. We swung down through Sleepy Eye to Blue Mounds, then drove up (following the Pine to Prairie Birding Trail for a good ways) as far north as Lake of the Woods before looping south through Itasca State Park and Aitkin County. Listed below are some of our better finds...
PIPING PLOVER - 6/13 Sleepy Eye Sewage Ponds WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER - Sleepy Eye Sewage Ponds UPLAND SANDPIPER - fields and prairies in Yellow Medicine, Clay, and Polk counties WILLOW FLYCATCHER - Rock County RED-HEADED WOODPECKER - Blue Mounds SP *WHITE-EYED VIREO* - 6/14 Pipestone National Monument WILSON'S PHALAROPE - in a wet farmfield in Ottertail County MARBLED GODWIT - Rothsay WMA GREATER PRAIRIE-CHICKEN - Rothsay WMA LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE - Felton Prairie CHESTNUT-COLLARED LONGSPUR - Felton Prairie BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE - Agassiz NWR RED-NECKED GREBE - on nest in Agassiz NWR OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER - Beltrami State Forest BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER - Itasca SP Also had 15 warblers, mostly at Itasca SP and Hayes Lake SP Also found it interesting that I saw a dark-eyed junco (Beltrami SF) and a brown creeper (Itasca SP) during the summer Good birding everyone! Keith Pulles, Wright County
