Today I led a group of 25 birders on the LL Smith research vessel which was part of the Hawk Ridge Weekend field trips. The day started out very foggy with less than a 1/4 mile visibility but the birding was very fun despite the fog.
-24 Red-necked Phalaropes were seen between the boat house on Park Pt and the Superior Entry. They were flying about and at times allowed us to view them on the water surface as they spun around grabbing insects. This might be a new record high count for this species on Lake Superior in Minnesota waters or at least in NE Minnesota. I posted a photo on my blog and did not have time to trim the photo to add it to the MOU site. ( http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/ ) Other birds: - Black Tern ( WI waters ) -Wilson Warbler out in the fog over the boat and being chased down by gulls. -Am. Restart flying over the boat The weather was not good for us to view distant gulls ( 1000's of them ) over in WI waters in the Gull Bluff vicinity. Its amazing the number of gulls roosting or loafing 2 miles off shore on Lake Superior. On the radar in the Cpt. cabin a huge green area on the radar screen showed how wide spread this raft of gulls was. It spread nearly a 1/4 mile long and from the boat we could see 1000's of heads of gulls in the fog. It would of been great if we had no fog to see what other gulls species were out there in the mix. Heading to the point tomorrow morning to see if I can see 26 species of warblers! Mike Mike Hendrickson Duluth, Minnesota Website: http://webpages.charter.net/mmhendrickson/ Blog: http://colderbythelakebirding.blogspot.com/ ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
