I located a Buff-breasted Sandpiper today on a mudflat island in Lake Shady (in Olmsted County). Access is via Oronoco County Park off of Cty 12 on the north side of the lake - just to the east of Hwy 52 at Oronoco. I viewed the bird (and about 70 - 80 other shorebirds - not counting killdeer) from the picnic tables located near the shoreline. The bird was hanging out near the middle of the island where some grasses have grown up and help to camouflage the bird. The water level has been lowered and the island has proven to be a good spot to find shorebirds for the past several days. There are additional mudflat islands that are in the lake that the shorebirds have been using. One of them is located out of sight of the mowed grassy area of the park but can be found to the west of the park by walking through the trees from the parking area. At one point in time the Buff-breasted and several other shorebirds flew over toward that location so that might be a spot to check out if it is not found on the close larger island. Bob Ekblad Olmsted County in Southeast Minnesota ekblad at frontiernet.net http://www.Birding-Minnesota.com -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080808/94fc30ae/attachment.html
