Public thanks are in order to Tom Dahlen of Mankato, for sharing his extensive knowledge of local birding hot-spots, and to anyone who does the same; I have no regrets about missing the more northerly areas that were on our original itinerary, because we learned more in depth from your guiding. I'm not sure we would have had such an excellent experience of the Kentucky warblers, had it not been for your specific knowledge of its location and habits. If you haven't seen Alyssa De Rubeis' post, I can tell you she and Jed Askari are just as appreciative as I am.
For the record, I did a bit of checking on black-billed cuckoo nests in my Ehrlich book. The description there seems an unlikely match for the nest we saw where the cuckoos were hanging out. What we saw seemed to lack a twig base, but rather was made entirely of soft grassy material. It was also set out in the open away from the trunk. Perhaps there was a twig foundation that was obscured by the grasses, but the location was certainly more exposed than the book suggests. If anyone hikes the Williams nature Center area and finds a black-billed cuckoo on the nest, I'd love to hear about it! 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
