Today the birding finally felt "springy." Red-winged blackbirds showed up at Carpenter Nature Center (Hastings), hard on the heels of the redpolls and pine siskins that were there yesterday. The skies above and around Carpenter were criss-crossed by dozens of soaring bald eagles of all ages, as well as a red-tailed hawk, which Jen Vieth had seen, too, on her ride from Hastings.
Down at Point Douglas the gulls were accompanied by 2 pairs of redhead ducks, plus one extra male, and they were joined by a pair of canvasbacks. Both scaup and ring-necked ducks were present, along with the mallards, Canadas, and a raft of coots. Best of all was the pair of peregrine falcons on the railroad bridge (WI side); Sue Plankis saw them mating, and one young man had gotten a sequence of photos of the act, which he showed to Rob and me. Jen called to say she'd found a couple of Great Blue Herons at Lake Rebecca in Hastings, so we headed that way. We missed those, but we did find the another pair of peregine falcons hunting near the boat ramp. Later in the day, we re-found them, sitting on the Hastings Bridge. Returning home by way of Water Street in Lilydale, we saw another sign of spring: a bald eagle cozied down in a nest, on the north side of Pickerel Lake. That was on top of yesterday's sighting of a white-breasted nuthatch clearing old nesting material out of a perfect cavity; it may have been incidental to food-foraging, but at least she was exploring the real estate. It's really going on. Good spring birding to all. Linda Whyte ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
