Have had some fun birding over the past weekend or so. Last Friday my mom and I walked at Nine Mile Creek to the end of the path on the advice of another birder and found Prothonotary Warblers in the ponds that surrounds both sides of the path before the end of the path at the river. There was a male Prothonotary singing and later we saw a female Prothonotary entering and exiting a nesting site with nesting material in a dead tree near the path!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mnbirder/7377726392/ Nine Mile Creek is in Bloomington, Hennepin County and is the same birding area where the Hooded Warbler was seen over the last week. And then today I went to Murphy-Hanrehan in Scott County this afternoon and unfortunately discovered how hot it was today. I was in the southern part of the park and walked from trail markers 29-30-31-32-33-28 and then back to the parking lot at 29. Some highlights included 2 male Bobolinks, 7+ Henslow's Sparrows (singing, only one seen), many singing Sedge Wrens, and a Field Sparrow with 3 fledglings. The most interesting part was hearing a probable Le Conte's Sparrow. There has been a Le Conte's reported in this area on eBird 3 times in the past few weeks so I was keeping an ear for it. I heard what I am 80-90% sure was the Le Conte's Sparrow singing just north Trail Marker 28 near the area where grassland and marsh meet together. I did not see it, unfortunately. Previous reports of it on June 11th and 16th had been just east of Trail Marker 31, but today I heard it straight west from Trail Marker 31 about where the path turns south toward #28. A map with the trail markers is here: http://www.threeriversparks.org/parks/murphy-hanrehan-park.aspx Also saw a pair of Common Loons with what looked like a young Loon between them on Hanrehan lake. They were visible from the road exiting the park. Ben Harste Bloomington, 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
