Today (Sunday) I led a MRVAC field trip to Miesville Ravine in the SE corner of Dakota Co. The 17 participants found approximately 37 species including nine warbler species, including Cerulean, and about twenty hummingbirds including a possible first state record female Black-chinned Hummingbird. We got excellant pictures of the gray crown of the bird, but, even though most saw the wings of the perched bird reaching down almost to the end of the tail, I don't believe any of the pictures captured this field mark. We will be returning to the park tomorrow (Monday) evening about 6:30pm to try again to get a better photo.
The bird was up the trail from the north parking lot. On the main trail take the second right fork over the bridge by the meadow. Look for a short path to the creek. The hummer was working the jewelweed along trout creek and can be recognized by the mask through the eyes created by the contrasting light crown. After lunch today some of the group headed over to the Randolph industrial park, where the best birds were a couple of probable American Pipits found by Linda Whyte. After that we stopped at a flooded field west of Randolph where we found eight species of shorebirds. We also had a couple of interesting Kingbirds. One appeared to be a hybrid between an Eastern and Western Kingbird with a yellowish front and a tail with a white tip and white outer feathers. Another kingbird was a juvenile with a brown back with white wing edges. Steve Weston on Quigley 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
