Hi all, I biked and birded along the Hastings Trail System, starting at my home and following the trail along the river and back, with stops at Lake Isabel, Bull Frog Pond, and C.P. Adams Park, and then home.
The highlight has to be without question the singing CERULEAN WARBLER that I heard at C.P. Adams Park. At first, I thought it was just a Black-throated Blue, but upon consulting a SECOND field guide at home (Sibley, I use Kaufmann in the field) , and then relistening to ALL the warblers in iTunes, I realized it wasn't a Black-throated Blue, but a Cerulean instead. The habitat there is perfect; it's along the river, and it's somewhat high up. He was in the tall trees at the very top near the building that is across 291 from the Mn. Veterans Home, and on the same side of the street as the park. I was standing in the tall grass looking up at the trees, which are on an embankment (there are stairs that go down to the river to the right of where I was; I parked my bike in the blocked off driveway of the building I was near) . I even went back to look for him after I decided it WAS a Cerulean, but all I heard was his song. He wouldn't let me see him, which is a "trait" of a Cerulean. With that find, two of my nemesis birds have been eliminated in less than a week: Prothonotary and, now, Cerulean. Yippee! I only wished I could have seen this bird as I know there are going to be "doubters" out there. Perhaps this is to make up for the Cerulean nesting survey I missed out on in Maryland last year? Here's the list of what I saw while self-propelling (in no particular order): Red-winged Blackbird Eastern Bluebird Northern Cardinal Gray Catbird Black-capped Chickadee Brown-headed Cowbird American Crow Mourning Dove Bald Eagle Great Egret House Finch Great Crested Flycatcher Blue-gray Gnatcatcher American Goldfinch Canada Goose Common Grackle Great Blue Heron Ruby-throated Hummingbird Blue Jay Killdeer Mallard Common Nighthawk White-breasted Nuthatch Baltimore Oriole Eastern Phoebe Rock Pigeon American Redstart American Robin Chipping Sparrow House Sparrow Song Sparrow Vesper Sparrow Barn Swallow Tree Swallow Brown Thrasher Cerulean Warbler Yellow Warbler Cedar Waxwing Eastern Wood-Pewee Downy Woodpecker Red-bellied Woodpecker House Wren Common Yellowthroat The Cedar Waxwings were seen off of my deck this morning, which was mainly what inspired me to get my Trek out for the first time this year and ride. It's really hard to get on that bike the first time; it makes me wonder how I ever managed to ride 45 miles in three clock hours that one time.... Good birding, Richard Richard L. Wood, Ph. D. Hastings, MN rwoodphd at yahoo.com ----- Original Message ---- From: Frank Berdan <[email protected]> To: MOU-NET <mou-net at moumn.org> Sent: Sunday, June 1, 2008 8:02:53 AM Subject: [mou] BGBY MN Spring data request The official Big Green Big Year website <http://www.sparroworks.ca/bigby.html> claims that 25 Minnesotans are doing a BGBY this year. If you have started your BGBY, please reply by Wednesday, June 4. The data requested below were selected to eventually indicate efficiency and effectiveness of the BGBY process inMN. If you have suggestions, please reply also. Starting point (City, County) Number of species observed, Walking Number of species observed, Self-Propelled Number of species observed, at starting-point Feeders if included in the above Your name (or ?Anonymous? if so preferred in the summary) Optional data: Names of most productive sites visited Your range per outing in miles and/or longest trek of the season Best birds observed Any estimates of # outings, miles or hours spent Any noteworthy story(ies) Please include your data during 1/1/08 ? 5/31/08. Thank you, Frank Berdan, self-appointed MN BGBY compiler & publicist ;) --- This mailing list is sponsored by the Minnesota Ornithologists' Union. Mailing list membership available on-line at http://moumn.org/subscribe.html. ----- To unsubscribe send a blank email to mou-net-request at moumn.org with a subject of unsubscribe. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080601/591a1978/attachment-0001.html
