One of our Park District volunteers, Arnie Fredrickson, asked that I post his observations to the MOU Net. Please see below.
Madeleine Linck Wildlife Technician Three Rivers Park District 12615 County Road 9 Plymouth, MN 55441 763-694-7851 [email protected] -----Original Message----- From: Freddie [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, April 07, 2011 5:02 PM I made a two-day trip down the Mississippi to look for pelicans and tundra swans Tuesday and Wednesday. I saw no swans but I saw lots of pelicans. On Tuesday afternoon I saw big flocks of them riding thermals and going upriver just northwest of Weaver, MN. A bit later I went up atop the bluff north of La Crescent to observe Lake Onalaska. There was what I called a "good-sized" flock of pelicans on a low island or sandbar way out in the lake but I couldn't form any estimate of their number. On Wednesday evening about 6 pm I saw a huge flock of them roosting on long, narrow islands near Cochrane, WI. I saw them from across the river at Minneiska, MN, about 1-1/4 to 1-1/2 miles away. I estimate they were spread out along a quarter to a third mile of islands, although with a break between them. It's pretty hard to estimate how many there were but my guess is 500 to 1000, maybe even more. A Minneiska resident that I talked to said the birds hadn't been there yesterday. Whenever I could get close enough to make out details of the birds in my spotting scope I saw that they had horns on their bills so I'm sure I was seeing the migration of adults going to nesting colonies. The river is awfully high (Lake Pepin is the worst; it's up 8 feet) so there's a limited number of places where a big flock of pelicans can come down to roost for the night but the birds find them. Arnie ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
