Hi everyone, I had a pretty good day of birding today. I checked the lakes around Rice County without finding anything new or unusual for waterfowl, but I did have a nice male Northern Harrier west of Warsaw. In the same location, I had two sturnella meadowlarks, which remained silent, and I also saw a beautiful dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk.
I then traveled to Waseca County in search of ducks and from the small park on the north side of Loon Lake, there were a few things; the most interesting being about 20 Canvasbacks and a pair of FOY Ruddy Ducks. While observing the ducks, I got a glimpse of a small falcon flying by but wished I could have had a better look. I was able to re-locate the bird across the lake scaring up a bunch of starlings, but it was just too far away to notice any details. Later, lamenting this fact, I was leaving the park, driving down the street (7th Ave NW) when I noticed a bird perched on the TV antenna of a residence. Thinking it might be something ornamental; I nevertheless turned around to check it out and was delighted to find a Merlin! I had long looks at it and the bird remained perched there after I left. Other birds of interest that I found in Waseca County were Northern Shrike, Fox Sparrow, and a small flock of Snow Buntings. Best of all, after returning home, I took our dog outside and while out back, I noticed a raptor perched in a tree across the river. Noticing that it was different, I called up to our apartment and asked my wife to grab my binos and bring them down. The bird remained while I waited and when I was able to get a look through the optics, I was astonished to see a juvenile Northern Goshawk! Shortly thereafter, it left and flew off to parts unknown. Probably looking for a duck dinner! What a great Easter! Hope yours was as good! Dave Bartkey Faribault, MN screechowl at charter.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080323/59586e67/attachment.html
