Spend Sunday and Monday Minnesota Bird atlasing in the Shamineau Lake area (NE priority block and NW non-priority block) and had some intersting finds. 5 Caspian Terns (migrants no doubt) on Shamineau and 3 on Crookneck Lake. Raven family of 5 well-fledged and coming in to investigate my attempts to get a response from Soras by hand clapping, always a nice find this far south. A fully fledged and flying Lark Sparrow in a pine-planted open sandy savanna just south of Round Lake (Round Lake #132 in the state for the creative MN lake-naming early immigrant). Safe date for this species is June 1 but my experience in Midwest is that this species is back on their territories by early May at the latest and obviously one pair was. 8 pairs of loons on Shamineau Lake (doing loony things according to the lake association this year like nesting under boat docks and not nesting on the loon platforms). 26 White Pelicans moving north over Crookneck Lake. Dozens of Golden-winged Warblers in upland scubby sites ranging from aspen to pine--all seemed to be on territory but safe date not until June 1. No Purple Martins despite many houses, mostly falling apart, along the shoreline--where is Kelly Applegate when you need him? If you're going to do atlasing this year, please sign up soon as peak season is almost upon us. It's the most fun you can have birding in the summer! Bob Russell, USFWS ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
