At 2pm Sunday myself and several others observed the Harlequin Duck
fly from the area of open water on Blue Lake into the sewage pond to
its south. The bird could not be relocated once it landed in the pond.
The consensus was that the bird probably spends its time feeding (on
fish?) in the open area on Blue Lake during most of the day and spends
the night in the warmer water of the sewage pond. If you do go looking
for the bird, you might need to check both bodies of water (note that
the sewage pond can only be glimpsed from its north side through the
fence). Additionally, at some point this bird might even decide to
spend some time at the Mill Pond and vicinity at Veterans Memorial
Park in Shakopee about two miles to the west along Hwy. 101.
The path leading north from the gate (the so-called hunters' parking
lot...see Craig Mandel's post) at the Wilkie Unit is very walkable as
the snow has been trampled down. If you park at the main parking lot
just to the east and decide to take the longer walk, I'd bring some
snowshoes as the snow is very deep and not nicely trampled.
Bob Dunlap
----
Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net
Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
