During my 26th trip to Sherburne NWR's Wildlife Drive to look for the common gallinules, I FINALLY was able to see 3 young birds early this morning. Hooray! I also ran into Marcia Johnson out there - she's the woman who took the only photo of the birds from this year, and counted 9 young. The spot to look for them is NOT just down the hill from the Birds of Prey overlook. You need to continue farther down the road - at about 2.7 or 2.8 miles - past the water control structure. The last large patch of open water on your left before the curve (curve to the right with pine trees on both sides of the road). They were way at the back of this open area, and I nearly missed them because they only came out of the cattails a foot or two, foraged around for about 2-3 minutes, and then disappeared back into the vegetation again. I was there a total of 1/2 hour with just this brief look. Marcia said this is the spot where she took the photo earlier in the summer. Driving slowly, and dragging my feet, I continued toward the office and work, but my car - all by itself - detoured to the east of headquarters to CR 42, and turned south off of CR 9. There's a housing development called "Oak Savanna" (granite sign on the corner) where there are red-headed woodpeckers nesting. I drove around this area for 1/2 hour and found two families of red-headed woodpeckers, as well as a good variety of other birds including: Red-tailed hawk Red-bellied woodpecker Northern flicker Downy woodpecker Mourning dove Ruby-throated hummingbird Eastern wood-pewee Great-crested flycatcher Eastern kingbird Red-eyed vireo Blue jay Black-capped chickadee White-breasted nuthatch House wren Eastern bluebird American robin Yellow warbler Eastern towhee Chipping sparrow Rose-breasted grosbeak Indigo bunting Baltimore oriole family Brown thrasher American goldfinch Field sparrow Lark sparrow Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR & Stearns County
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