This AM on a quick trip to Forest Lake, I spotted a male Bobolink on a wire!!
This was over the same field that holds an active Osprey nest, along Lake Drive
just to the east of I-35, near Mud Lake. This is probably about 1/2 to 3/4 mile
west of the Zodiac St. entrance to the Racino, and about 1 mile from the
freeway. I turned the car around to view it again, since it's been a LONG time
since I've seen a Bobolink in this part of Anoka Co, and especially along such
a busy highway with no large prairie immediately adjacent. There is open land,
but it's mainly marsh and bog, with the very shallow Mud Lake, on which black
terns nest. I have seen Bobolinks recently in Washington Co, to the ESE of this
location (not this year as I haven't been on the road where I usually see them,
but regularly in the past 5 years.)
This is the same field that I mentioned earlier this week in a response about
Sandhill Cranes and Turkeys. A couple of years ago, I wrote a note about this
same area in mid-May, when I was transfixed for about an hour by a mixed flock
of warblers, swallows, vireos, and other spring migrants. What a great field
and farm pasture area, to support all this wildlife!
Holly Peirson
Columbus, SE Anoka Co.
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