I'm posting this observation and questions to the mou list serv for Mike Zicus, who is a retired DNR Waterfowl biologist who spends a fair amount of time fly fishing. Please send your replies directly to him. Thanks. --Pam Perry, Brainerd
>>> "Mike Zicus" <[email protected]> 7/23/2009 9:41 AM >>> Greetings, I saw something that struck me as kind of odd on Wisconsin's Brule a couple of weeks ago. There was an Empidonax of some kind (it never sang) perched in a willow hanging over the river. The bird was about 10-12 feet away and in clear view. While I was fishing, I watched it as it jumped off the perch and flew straight down into the river. It didn't just fly down and pick something off the surface but rather smacked into the water making a pretty good splash (for something that size anyway). It immediately flew back to the perch, shook off a bit, and then repeated the same dive twice more. The 3 "splash-downs" occurred in a matter of a couple of minutes. The following day, I was fishing in the same spot at about the same time of day (~9:30 AM) and watched as an Empidonax (the same bird?) flew out of the willow from a perch that was about 3 feet from the one used the previous day. This time the bird dove into the water 4 times, returning to the perch in between dives. There was lots of "stuff" on the water surface (mostly willow seeds and fluff) both mornings and I didn't see any kind of insects hatching, but there must have been something emerging. Have anyone ever heard of Empidonaxes foraging in this manner? Do you think this would be worth a note someplace? Thanks. Mike Zicus ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
