Last evening birded from 5:30 to sundown the Platte River trail system of Crane Meadows NWR E or Little Falls, MN. Slow, but productive of 53 species. Of note: Solitary, Pectoral, White-Rumped sandpipers, Wilson's snipe, Cooper's Hawk, chased on a couple of un-id'd large "forest grove" hawks....we were suspecting possible Goshawks by their behaviour of staying in the thicker Bur Oak trees, staying low, and perching quickly....just couldn't get on to them clearly,... perhaps Red-shouldered. Great Horned Owl at dusk on powerline pole at the trailhead parking area, Nighthawks, Philadephia Vireo, Blackburninan, Yellow, Chestnut-sided, BG Gnatcatcher, GC Flycatchers, Leasts, Willow(or Alder) and E. Phoebes. And, many Common Yellowthroats along the cattail edges that deceived me into hoping for Nelson's Sharp tailed.....though I wonder if I caught a glimpse of one anyway? The prairie fields were dry to a crisp, wild rice in full head (10,000 blackbirds), the river low and stagnant appearing. mjb -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070818/077166d6/attachment.html
