Birded around western Pope County again Sunday PM and Monday. Since I was already in Pope County trying to be a good son and help my mother with some appointments and tasks, I worked on my MNBBA surveys a bit. I also decided to survey another block near my others. It turned out to be a great day – not that any day birding is a bad day.
Surprise – surprise! more Dickcissels. I think I am going to check all the priority blocks in Pope County for Dickcissels just to show up those Wisconsin folks. The bird of the day, though, is Black Terns. New Prairie township is really agricultural and there are only two MN State Wildlife Management Areas in it – no WPA’s. But the New Prairie WMA is a bird-rich piece of land. There were not one, not two, but three pairs of Red-necked Grebes and one had a pair of chicks. There were seven Great Egrets, two Great Blue Herons, one Green Heron, a bunch of Mallards, Wood ducks, and Blue-winged Teal – and several Pied-billed Grebes. Only the Pied-billeds had chicks. But the most entertaining feature was the presence of two pairs of Black Terns. I watched as one Great Egret wandered too close to what is most likely a tern nest and received the full wrath of mamma and pappa tern. They dive-bombed that egret mercilessly who had to duck every time they zoomed in. He (or she) finally gave up and flew away. I was standing on the road at least 200 yards away but they (the terns) even had to fly up and check me out to see what I was up to. Luckily I did not get bombed. I had never before thought of Great Egrets as predatory birds but I suppose it would be pretty hard to pass up a couple of tasty tern chicks. Then on my way to check my next block, I passed the Nora WMA. Even though it is not in any priority block, I couldn’t help but check on it. There were at least 15 Black Terns swooping over the water. I could not determine if any were fledglings vs adults but they seemed to be doing well. This is a very large WMA and it is surrounded by many acres of pasture. Given more time, I might come back later and check for shrikes. The other “good bird” was American Kestral. I found 6 individuals and at least two were juvenile birds. Another pleasant surprise in New Prairie was a group of bird feeders at one of the farmsteads. Along with the Goldfinches, House Finches, and woodpeckers were three, yes THREE, Rose-breasted Grosbeaks all at the same time. And one was feeding a begging juvenile. On the way back to Glenwood (and after a Dairy Queen stop), I checked the Froland WPA. Although it is in Bob Russell’s block, it is one of my favorite birding spots. There I ran into a group of young men from the Morris office of the US Fish and Wildlife doing buckthorn removal. Had an enjoyable conversation with them and was asked by their leader to “plug” the MNBBA project. In return, they reported that, during their time at Froland, they have seen; American Coot with 5 chicks, Dickcissels and Bobolinks, and three Kestral chicks fledge from a Wood-duck box. Oh – and there were quite a few other birds, too. Not a bad day at all. Sid Stivland Plymouth, MN (and Pope County) ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
