I have been busy birding the Christmas Bird Counts. I've done four counts and have three more coming. It has been great. Besides the one I organize (the Cedar Creek Bog in northern Anoka Co.), I don't report the birds I have found. But, so far I have seen: 2 Canvasbacks, 2 Greater Scaup, 2 Buffleheads, 2 Red-breasted Mergansers, 23 Evening Grosbeaks, Redpolls, a Shrike, 7 Ruffed Grouse, 251 Robins. Each one of those species was seen on just one of the counts.
In between birding every available hour of daylight, I have been working, driving around the Metro. The one bird I have been noticing is our highway sentinels: the Red-tailed Hawks. Several of our winter hawks are much darker than expected. One bird at Highway 100 and 77th in Edina, I had to double back for a second look. I thought I had found a Rough-legged, but it was a dark morph Red-tail. The other interesting bird I found was ornamental. I find many inanimate Red-head Woodpeckers and Loons, but this was the first Ivory-billed Woodpecker. I was truly disappointed when the people were not home and I couldn't ask them about their bird. Today, I saw a deer at the edge of Highway 62 and I-494. From where it was, I was pretty certain that its only logical path would take it right across Highway 62. I hope it did so successfully. While tramping through the snow on Monday following in the footsteps of a birding companion, I saw a Meadow Vole in the foot hole I was about to step. Steve Weston on Quiggley Lake in Eagan, MN [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
