Hello fellow birders, Thank you very much to Bob for the post about the birds in Rochester! I got to the site previously mentioned just north of Shopko where Hwy. 52 and Hwy. 63 meet in south Rochester at about 7:00am. The new fire station that Bob mentioned is adjacent to Shopko to the northeast. I was hoping to find the Cackling and Ross's Geese that were mentioned but did not think I would fare well with a shy species like a Nelson's Sparrow. Much to my surprise, this was one of the first birds I saw before the sun had even come over the horizon. It was across from the fire station in a tall patch of grass that is near a puddle. The bird came out to drink several times in full view before it would get chased back into the grass by some active Savannah Sparrows. What a beauty! I was then able to focus on the geese that were flying, swimming in the pond and grazing in the nearby field. Sure enough there were two Ross's, one blue morph Snow Goose, and probably more than two dozen Cackling Geese along with the Canadas. There was quite a bit of other bird activity in the area but nothing of particular interest. I headed east from Rochester on Hwy. 14 and found probably the biggest surprise of the day. At "the Arches" about 11 miles west of Winona I closely observed a beautiful Tufted Titmouse that was feeding in an area of high bird activity. It was the best observation I've ever had of this species. This was about halfway between the exit from Hwy. 14 at the easternmost entrance and Farmer's Park. There was also a Nashville and a Orange-crowned warbler in the area along with the numerous Yellow-rumped Warblers. Along the Mississippi there were many A.W. Pelicans but I didn't have enough time to find anything else of interest. There were hundreds of Ring-billed gulls but I could not pick out another species of gull. Overall a VERY productive day with four state birds and one of those being a lifer! The Cackling, and Ross's Geese and the titmouse I had not seen before in the state and the very cooperative Nelson's (sharp-tailed) Sparrow was a great "lifer" from a much sought after genus of which I have now seen five of the seven N.A. representatives. Good birding to all, Jason Caddy southwest Minneapolis [email protected] ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
