Just thought I'd pass this note onto the friends and local birdwatchers throughout the Duluth/Superior area, as well as throughout MN...
Yesterday I went out with my field ornithology class, and we did our big 12 hour day. WHAT A DAY. There was several new birds to the students which we haven't observed in class yet, and the day (early morning) started out superfantastic and kept on getting better from there. I called for Northern Saw-whet Owls and Barred Owls with my voice (even did a few Eastern Screech Owls a few times in case there would be any wandering birds around here). At the very first spot in the woods in central Bayfield, a Barred Owl called back. The students were soooo excited. Even cooler is that after that first responding Barred Owl finished calling (north side of the road), a second Barred Owl called back from the south side of the road. We were able to hear them chatting back and forth. What a treat, with a clear and starry morning! I know that none of my students subscribe to wisbirdnet, but I just wanted to say as a first-time-professor, I am so impressed and proud of how knowledgable and confident they've become with identifying birds and learning about aspects of bird life :) We left campus at 3:00AM and arrived back on campus at 3:00pm. Here's our total list for yesterday: Canada Goose Wood Duck American Black Duck Mallard Blue-winged Teal Northern Shoveler Green-winged Teal Lesser Scaup Bufflehead Common Goldeneye Hooded Merganser Common Merganser Red-breasted Merganser Ruffed Grouse Common Loon Pied-billed Grebe Double-crested Cormorant Great Blue Heron Turkey Vulture Bald Eagle Cooper's Hawk Broad-winged Hawk American Kestrel Merlin Semipalmated Plover Killdeer Spotted Sandpiper Solitary Sandpiper Lesser Yellowlegs Short-billed Dowitcher American Woodcock Bonaparte's Gull Ring-billed Gull Herring Gull Caspian Tern Common Tern Forster's Tern Rock Pigeon Mourning Dove Barred Owl - 4 total!!! Chimney Swift Ruby-throated Hummingbird Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Hairy Woodpecker Northern Flicker Pileated Woodpecker Least Flycatcher Eastern Phoebe Blue-headed Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Blue Jay American Crow Common Ravel Tree Swallow Cliff Swallow Barn Swallow Black-capped Chickadee Red-breasted Nuthatch Winter Wren Sedge Wren MARSH WREN Golden-crowned Kinglet Veery Hermit Thrush Wood Thrush American Robin Gray Catbird European Starling GOLDEN-WINGED WARBLER Nashville Warbler Northern Parula Yellow Warbler Chestnut-sided Warbler Cape May Warbler Yellow-rumped Warbler Black-throated Green Warbler Blackburnian Warbler Palm Warbler Black-and-white Warbler American redstart Ovenbird Northern Waterthrush - observed a pair! Common Yellowthroat CANADA WARBLER Eastern Towhee Chipping Sparrow Clay-colored Sparrow Vesper Sparrow Savannah Sparrow Song Sparrow Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Northern Cardinal Bobolink Red-winged Blackbird Eastern Meadowlark Brewer's Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Baltimore Oriole Purple Finch Pine Siskin American Goldfinch House Sparrow Throughout yesterday's big day, the furthest we ever traveled from Northland College campus was about 23 miles, just around the bay. It's incredible how much habitat diversity is up here, and as a result, the bird diversity is just fantastic. Good birding, Erik Bruhnke Ashland, WI [email protected] www.pbase.com/birdfedr/naturallyavian ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
