We spent late afternoon yesterday at Sherburne NWR. The overwhelming aura was DRY!! Birding was slow on the Wildlife Drive, highlight was a gorgeous juvenile Northern Harrier, coursing over what's left of Little Bluestem pool. Also saw three Great Egrets in Big Bluestem, two Trumpeter Swans at the perpendicular crossing midway through, where they've been regular, two more at the farthest Stickney Pool, and a juvenile Bald Eagle at first Stickney. Waterfowl was only Canadas and a very few ducks. Only small birds were a few each of Bluebirds, Red-Winged Blackbirds still hanging around, and un-ID'd brown UFOs.
Went up to the northwest corner, along CR3 and CR70, over to CR11 and back, for the last 20 minutes of daylight. Most unusual was a wing of 14 Great Egrets flying in from the north - we haunt that spot quite a bit in Sept-Oct and we've never seen Egrets like that before. We did see a total of about 20 Sandhill Cranes in small groups come in from the north; a few may have passed over before we got up there, but it's early for any significant numbers to be building anyway. I think. We were surprised to see a group of six Nighthawks, hunting (also saw a pair over the River at the Anoka bridge last week) - seems late for them? Erika Sitz Ramsey, north Anoka 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
