I had to take my son to school in Forest Lake this AM. On the way home I saw a few little bitties flying across the road at an opportune spot for me to stop, and I had taken my noc?s with me just in case The osprey?s field on Lake Drive/Hwy 23 (just plowed) was ALIVE with birds! Then I moved down the road about ? mile and pulled off, stopped the car, and was blown away . There is a yard that belongs to the farm but it?s not a farmyard, it?s just a large open space with a very small vernal pond, some grasses and small shrubs, and some huge oaks. I opened the windows and watched and listened. The ground was crawling with birds, perhaps more than I ever saw at a Point Pelee fall-out
I began to calculate . I counted several times over the next hour and there were consistently about 12 birds per 16 ft square section of fence. So I did some math (admittedly not my strong suit) to find the area of the field and yard I was viewing and came up with 7, 500 birds just on the ground. I didn?t even try to count all the ones in the trees as they were very busy feeding, flitting, and fleeing whenever a large truck, bus, or car would go by. By far the most were Yellow-rumps, second would be Am. Redstart, 3rd would be Yellow. The rest were ones & twos, but really nice to see them, however briefly! Best look at a Yellow-throated Vireo I?ve had in a while, too! I have been reading some of the other posts from the last couple of days, so I know I?m not the only one who has experienced this phenomenon, but it was one of the most unbelievable hours I?ve ever experienced in birding! I had 13 species of warblers -- and 3 more sp in my own driveway; one was Northern Waterthrush, and I had about 12 of them from one pond to the next on my road and all down my drive. I think that probably doubles the number of waterthrushes I?ve seen in my life!! Hee hee Overall, I am at 65 species for the day and that is just what I saw from that little spot and on the way home, only a couple of miles farther. I didn?t even try for ducks, geese, terns on Howard Lake, cause there?s really no way to get to it w/o waders right now But I got Sandhill Crane as a pair was standing ON my road as I drove down it!! So I had to slow down and wait for them and that?s how I noticed the waterthrushes, a pair of Olive-sided Flycatchers, and a Chestnut-sided Warbler. Wow That makes my spring! Holly Peirson Columbus, Anoka Co. Warblers seen: Tennessee (10-12), Nashville (1), No. Parula (1), Yellow (many), Magnolia (1), Cape May (2), Yellow-rumped (wow), Blackburnian (1), Palm (small amount), Black & White (1), Ovenbird (heard 2-3, probably on-territory), and Co. Yellowthroat (few). At home I saw the No. Waterthrush flock, 1 Chestnut-sided, and I heard a Black-throated Green. At home the YRWA?s are still eating my jelly, meal worms, peanuts, and suet. The orioles arrived on Sat, the Catbird and the Ruby-thr Hummer today. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080514/b1120afa/attachment.html
