Hey birders! Trent Robbins and I had a chance to get out Sunday afternoon. We visited the Mapleton Sewage Ponds, Cobb River WPA, and eastward to the Pemberton Sewage Ponds.
Mapleton sewage ponds had a nice variety of waterfowl: Green-winged Teal, American Wigeon, Ruddy Duck, Mallard, Redhead, Bufflehead, Hooded Merganser, Northern Shoveler, and two Greater Yellowlegs. The water looked low and there was much algae along the banks so it could produce shorebirds yet. We skirted the northwestern corner of Perch WPA heading east on County Road 168. We had a Northern Shrike here on our way home. We continued east on CR168 past Lakewood Road until the road took a little dip. The south side of the road has been flooded twice this year so there is lots of mud, some water, and lots of shorebird habitat. We had numerous Wilson's Snipe, a Greater Yellowlegs, a Baird's Sandpiper with a limp, a Least Sandpiper, and an extremely late Buff-breasted Sandpiper. We also had about 200 Killdeer and lots of American Golden-Plovers. When we first pulled up, there were 39 and some gulls flushed some of the flock and they winged their way out of there. When we returned later on our way home, we thought there were more than before. I counted 102 resting in the mud! Pemberton sewage ponds were a bust with nothing to show for it but some Fox Sparrows that were along the entrance road. Happy Birding! Chad Heins Mankato ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
