This morning I found 29 Cattle Egrets-13 in Grant county, and 16 in Douglas county and 3 Snowy Egrets in Grant. The area was on the south side of Pelican Lake near Ashby. The 13 Douglas county Cattle Egrets were at the end of Ashby Estates Rd. E. Then as you enter the Bah Lakes WMA area a little to the east, turn north on the Douglas/Grant county line road. When you hit Olson's Bay Road look east. This pond (Douglas county side) has been a favorite of Snowy Egrets in the past years. There were no Snowy Egrets here, but on the hillside on the opposite shore, 16 more Cattle Egrets were actively feeding. The 3 Snowy Egrets were about 0.5 to 1 mile south of Olson's Bay Rd. on the Grant/Douglas line road. They were on the west side(Grant Co.) of the road where a manmade rocky culvert/ditch/stream is. 2 birds were right down in the ditch area by the road flying/jumping around on the rocks that lined the stream, while the third one was visible farther out where the stream opens into a pasture and spreads into a pseudo delta type habitat. The Snowy Egrets still had the red lores, which I've only seen once before on a Snowy in MN. Interestingly, of all the years cattle and snowy egrets have inhabited this area, this is the first time I saw the Snowies on the Grant county side. Other area birds this morning- Grant: Willet-1/4 mile south of Snowy Egrets on west side of road. Red-breasted Merganser-2 of them at Bah Lakes Purple Finch-1 on south side of Pomme de Terre Lake Note: Bah Lakes WMA is either drawn down or just very dry.....lots of mudflats, but only shorebirds today were 2 Killdeer and the Willet. Douglas- Traditionally a good shorebird area is one mile south of the Brandon exit off I-94 and then any potholes along the east/west road for the next 2-3 miles going west. Along this stretch I had: 1 Willet 1 Peregrine Falcon
Ben Fritchman Fargo, ND for 5 more days.... then...who knows? Life after college...sounds like an adventure. _________________________________________________________________ Hotmail® has a new way to see what's up with your friends. http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/WhatsNew?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_WhatsNew1_052009 ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
