Saw a bunch of brown creepers, ruby-crowned kinglets, and yellow-rumped warblers on Nicollet Island and Boom Island Park this morning. At least four of each.
Also saw a hermit thrush, resident phoebes who returned a couple of weeks ago, and a single coot who might have been the same one that I've seen hanging around there for the last week or so. Song sparrows were duking it out, chipping sparrows were present as well. There's a Cooper's hawk pair building a nest in a tree on the edge of the Nicollet Island path that leads to the bridge to Boom Island. On Friday I got a great look at the female eating some sort of rodent while the male alternated between trying to mount her (she ignored him - busy eating) and gathering small branches and taking them to their nest. It looked like he was perching precariously near the ends of branches, flapping wildly to stay balanced, and then snapped some smaller ones off to take to the nest. It was neat to be able to compare the sizes of the two -he was so much smaller than her! Karen Kraco Minneapolis, MN ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
