On 14 June 2008 I ran the Chokio BBS route which starts on the west side of Fish Lake, Stevens County and heads west on gravel roads into Traverse County, ending 6 miles NNE of Barry. The landscape is almost entirely flat with a high water table but that doesn't stop the farmers from draining, ditching, and filling most of the wetlands. Actually had a farmer stop and ask me if I knew of any heat detection devices that could spot pheasants on the nest before the hay combine ran over them. Said he felt terrible about killing so many. And then the absolute low point of my BBS career was watching a crop duster complete his herbicide job on a wheat field, circle me twice, fly farther north a good half mile to another job, with me proceeding west, only to hear a roar and see him in the rear view mirror 100 feet behind me, 25 feet over the ground, and dumping a load of herbicide on the road and my unmarked government truck!! And who said the locals weren't open enough to saying hello first in rural Minnesota. Having my Zeiss 10x40's handy though he made a slight booboo in judgment as I easily could read his numbers and law enforcement was notified. Not sure if there is a law against spraying people but my hair has been weed free all month. Seems a bit presumptuous to greet any visitor to your land that way but maybe he'd seen some black helicopters recently and was a bit edgy.
This count had only been run 6 times previous to this year. I had 715 birds of 55 species, 2nd lowest bird count but average species total. Highlites included 16 Upland Sandpiper (mostly in croplands and what last year was alfalfa), 14 Eastern Kingbird (2nd highest ever), 10 Warbling Vireos (2nd high), 39 Horned Lark (tied my highest total but way below the 107 and 88 of the 2 counts in the early 1990's), 28 Vesper Sparrows, 3 Orchard and 6 Baltimore Orioles, and 18 Bobolink. I had 1 Western Kingbird and have missed them some years but the counts in the early 1990's had 14 and 5, respectively, mirroring a pattern seen elsewhere that this species has seriously declined in many areas of the state. Just plain lack of foraging habitat and food would seem to be the cause of the decline. Even some grass on the landscape is better than no grass and the industrial farms along this route allow no edge whatsoever, are rimmed by huge drainage ditches deep enough for an occasional lost duck, and have only a handful of species on their stops, mostly Vesper Sparrows, a few Horned Larks, and an occasional Killdeer. Bob Russell, USFWS, Ft. Snelling -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080708/15ecd64e/attachment.html
