Thanks to Doug Stucki, Joe Conelly, Tom and Elizabeth Bell, young Kyle, and others (17 counters total) who stopped by to visit and take part in The Big Sit at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge today. Our count circle was the observation deck at the beginning of the Prairie's Edge Wildlife Drive/Oak Savanna Trail. A total of 43 species were observed - we were thrilled with that number! Here's the list:
Canada Goose Trumpeter Swan Wood Duck American Wigeon Mallard Blue-winged Teal Ring-necked Duck Ring-necked Pheasant Wild Turkey Bald Eagle Northern Harrier Red-tailed Hawk Sandhill Crane Mourning Dove Red-bellied, Downy, Hairy and Pileated Woodpeckers Eastern Phoebe Blue Jay American Crow Black-capped Chickadee White-breasted Nuthatch Brown Creeper Golden & Ruby-crowned Kinglets Eastern Bluebird Hermit Thrush American Robin Cedar Waxwing Orange-crowned Warbler Yellow-rumped Warbler Palm Warbler Vesper, Fox, Song, Lincoln's, Swamp & White-throated Sparrows Dark-eyed Junco Red-winged Blackbird Eastern Meadowlark American Goldfinch It was interesting to note that the MOST bird activity was right at dawn - everyone was singing and moving around for about 10 minutes... birds, I mean. I observed this same thing when doing the Big Sit in Utah last year - when it was just getting to be light out, there was lots of noise and activity - before the light was good enough to really see the birds. Although the first couple of hours were by far the best, and we saw quite a bit of activity until about 10:30, we did manage to add 10 species during the rest of the day. I thought I'd see another flurry of activity at dusk, be it didn't happen. All birds recorded were seen by 4:30pm. Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
