23 birders gathered at Rice Lake Refuge Saturday morning for the annual Aitkin County outing. This year we birded at a rather deliberate pace, covering Aitkin CR 18, CR 5 and Rice Lake Refuge. Highlights included: Black-billed Magpie, Short-eared Owl, Boreal Chickadee, Gray Jay, Olive-sided and Yellow-bellied Flycatchers, and 16 warblers. We missed Great Gray and Northern Hawk Owls, and only one of us heard a Connecticut Warbler. A porcupine drew rave reviews. Trip list follows:
Canada Goose Wood Duck American Wigeon Mallard Blue-winged Teal Ring-necked Duck Hooded Merganser Common Loon Pied-billed Grebe American Bittern Great Blue Heron Green Heron Bald Eagle Northern Harrier Broad-winged Hawk Red-tailed Hawk American Kestrel Sandhill Crane Killdeer Wilson's Snipe Ring-billed Gull Black Tern Mourning Dove Short-eared Owl Ruby-throated Hummingibrd Belted Kingfisher Yellow-bellied Sapsucker Downy Woodpecker Hairy Woodpecker Black-backed Woodpecker (seen by Nate & I on 65, returning home, just into Kanabec County) Northern Flicker Pileated Woodpecker Olive-sided Flycatcher Eastern Wood-Pewee Alder Flycatcher Willow Flycatcher (heard by three birders in Rice Lake Refuge) Least Flycatcher Eastern Phoebe Great Crested Flycatcher Eastern Kingbird Yellow-throated Vireo Warbling Vireo Red-eyed Vireo Gray Jay Blue Jay Black-billed Magpie American Crow Common Raven Purple Martin Tree Swallow Cliff Swallow Barn Swallow Black-capped Chickadee Boreal Chickadee Red-breasted Nuthatch Winter Wren Sedge Wren Eastern Bluebird Veery Hermit Thrush Wood Thrush American Robin Gray Catbird European Starling Cedar Waxwing Golden-winged Warbler Nashville Warbler Northern Parula Yellow Warbler Chestnut-sided Warbler Yellow-rumped Warbler Black-throated Green Warbler Blackburnian Warbler Pine Warbler Black-and-white Warbler American Redstart Ovenbird Northern Waterthrush Connecticut Warbler (but see above comments, frustrating!) Mourning Warbler Common Yellowthroat Chipping Sparrow Clay-colored Sparrow Savannah Sparrow LeConte's Sparrow Song Sparrow Lincoln's Sparrow Swamp Sparrow White-throated Sparrow Dark-eyed Junco Scarlet Tanager Rose-breasted Grosbeak Indigo Bunting Dickcissel (seen by one car, believe on 210 near McGregor) Bobolink Red-winged Blackbird Eastern Meadowlark Yellow-headed Blackbird Common Grackle Brown-headed Cowbird Baltimore Oriole (one still singing perfect, "Peter Peter Peter" along Rice Lake Refuge Auto Tour) American Goldfich Many thanks to all who came, an excellent group! Al Schirmacher Princeton, MN Mille Lacs & Sherburne Counties ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
