Was on the drive from 6:15 to 8:15 this morning, and had 75 species. When I tallied the number, I was surprised it was that many! It seems the amount of bird song from last week to week is much diminished, but there's still quite a lot of activity out there, if you take the time to watch and listen. Spent considerable time looking for gallinules, with no luck. Lots of green herons were flying around and foraging in both Big Bluestem and Nelson Pools. Both alder and willow flycatchers were heard across from Nelson Pool. I saw one black-billed cuckoo at 2.1 miles. Still quite a few dickcissels - 18 birds vs 26 last week heard or seen. COOL sighting of the day was two juv.Virginia rails standing in the middle of the road just a bit past MM 3.0. One zipped into the wetland on the right side shortly after I stopped to look at them, but the second bird stood out in the open for nearly 10 minutes, looking around, preening, picking at the gravel, and flipping it's tail up. When I decided to leave, and crept up on it with the car, I got as close as 20-25 feet before it flew to the right/east out into the middle of the wetland. It matched the "juv." birds shown in Crossley and Kaufman field guides nearly perfectly. There are LOTS of biting flies (deer flies) here - come prepared! Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR
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