We went over to Crex yesterday afternoon to watch the Sandhill Cranes come in to roost. We arrived a little before 5pm, saw Cranes still feeding and milling around, so decided to do a loop around the sanctuary before sitting at the south end by Refuge Extension Flowage to watch the show.
On the loop we saw: - in the northwest corner, 2 Sharp-Tailed Grouse feeding near the corn planting, and then, near the overlook, another 2 + 2, each pair scared up by a helpful female Harrier - don't know if the Harrier could take a Grouse, but they didn't either and didn't want to hazard a guess - a very cooperative Snow Bunting sitting in the grass at the overlook - a total of 34 Trumpeter Swans, first in Reisinger Lake on the north side, then in Dike 1 on the East Road, and also in the Refuge Extension Flowage (there before the Cranes came in and we saw only two fly out after the invasion) - a Rough-legged Hawk about a half mile south of the North/East Road intersection (great look) and about a mile or so south, an aerial display by three hawks, which by size, shape, and behavior we guessed were a couple Harriers and another Rough-legged (getting darker and far away) - also scattered small flocks of A. Tree Sparrows, a Pheasant male resplendent in full sun, a couple Red-tailed Hawks, and 30-40 Deer (one big buck with a huge rack) on the north end >From 6:17pm onward, from along Main Dike Rd, we watched the Sandhills fly in, almost continuous motion, in a full arc swinging southward from due east to WNW. I gave up trying to count, I'm sure well over a thousand, probably close to 2000. A Bald Eagle sat on the platform for awhile, but flew as it got too crowded. We left them to settle in at 6:46pm Driving out west along Main Dike Rd a quarter mile past the W Refuge Rd intersection at 7:01pm, a Short-eared Owl flew up from by Dike 3 over the car and down again into the grass behind it. I got only a good look at the silhouette in the windshield but Paul saw the buffy wing patch as it flew by the driver's side window. At 7:07pm as we sat there talking about it, it or another one did the same maneuver. Erika Sitz Ramsey, north Anoka County -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20071014/206258da/attachment.html
