Four intrepid bird researching graduate students from the Univ. of Minnesota via other countries such as India and Taiwan (Gopi Sundar, Swati Kittur, Chih-Ming Hung, and myself) headed north to spend two days birding in the Duluth area. Our trip was a great success, with several uncommon/rare species seen. Here are the highlights:
Friday Wisconsin Point, Parking lot #1 - Juvenile Parasitic Jaeger seen harassing the large group of gulls. Other WI Point birds - 75-100 Bonaparte's Gulls, many Snow Buntings, Horned Grebe, Canvasback, Redhead, etc... Hawk Ridge - Black-backed Woodpecker, Northern Shrike, Merlin, Harrier, plus a few of the other common raptor species (slow-ish day of raptor migration). Saturday Park Point - all of the sightings below were on the Allouez Bay side of the point as the lake was very rough and difficult to scan. Black Scoter - in with a group of Greater Scaup at 40th St. Surf Scoter - in another Greater Scaup group out beyond 43rd St., right near the city bus turnaround area (before the beach house and ball fields). Pacific Loon - same location as Surf Scoter, but beyond the scaup flock, appearing to straddle the MN/WI border. This bird was side by side with 2 common loons, and provided great long looks without ever diving. American Black Duck - 5th street access Two Harbors light house area Townsend's Solitaire right on the east side of the light house against the tree line. Thanks to the "muffin group (?)" group of birders for putting us on this bird! Bohemian Waxwing (6) - feeding on Mountain Ash berries along the lakeshore trail northeast of the light house. Scott Loss St Paul ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
