On Sunday afternoon, we visited the Purgatory Creek Park in Eden Prairie MN and found a number of shorebirds, 2 trumpeter swans, 2 Caspian terns (one adult, one juv), some greenwinged teal, several DC cormorants, great blue herons, great egrets and 50? ring-billed gulls. We were lucky enough to witness an unsuccessful arial attack by an adult Peregrine Falcon - dove on the shorebirds but didn't hit any. Shorebirds seen from the blind on the W side of the lake (trail to the blind is just north of the spot marked .75 on the running map found here on the EP City web site: https://gis.edenprairie.org/home/purgatory-creek-running-route-map I suspect there were more there, but we felt comfortable with these identifications: 1 willet 1 dowitcher (long billed?) more than 10 lesser yellowlegs at least 5 semipalmated plovers at least 5 semipalmated sandpipers at least 5 killdeer other flocks of small peeps - when the peregrine flew by, there was a group of 25 small peeps flying around together There are quite a few cattails around the blind, so some of the viewing is restricted. A few of the birds were close enough to the blind so you could see them well with binoculars. Most were a further away, so I'd recommend bringing a scope if you can. Anne Hanley & George Skinner Hennepin Co. ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
