I ran the Glenwood BBS route on 13 June 2008, one of my favorite routes because it actually has topography and beautiful views of Lake Minnewaska and a better than average diversity of birds. Unfortunately the day was windy and distant calls hard to pick up and comparing such days to calm days of past years is probably not reasonable. I finished with 74 species with the average for the count being 75 species. The count has now been run 12 times. The count begins at Grove Lake, Kandiyohi County and heads west on the ridge below Lake Minnewaska, past Glacial Lakes State Park where restoration efforts are beginning to bear fruit, and ends south of Lake Emily. I only had 680 birds average being over 1300) with most woodlots either very quiet or too windy to hear except the close birds. Highlights included an American Bittern, a pair of Sandhill Cranes at Grove Lake, 3 Northern Harriers (tied all-time high), a very out of place Merlin, and 11 Marsh Wrens (2nd high). Low lights were too numerous to mention but the one Bobolink (average 17) was depressing, especially when I came to their favorite grassy field and found it all in sad-looking 2-inch high corn, even on the steepest hills which have at least a 30 percent slope and should never have been plowed. The corn on these steep hills was virtually non-existant. Glacial Lakes had a few meadowlarks and a good variety of sparrows and harriers which seem to have taken up residency there. Bob Russell, USFWS, Ft. Snelling -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080715/9027fda4/attachment.html
