Hi All, Because our scheduled sandhill crane tour for October 6 has been so popular, that tour is already full. We've added a second tour on Saturday, October 13th, meeting at 6:30 a.m. at Sherburne Refuge headquarters. More information and details on the tour can be found in the events section of our website: http://www.fws.gov/midwest/sherburne I've sent an updated poster to our webmaster, so I'm hoping she'll get it posted today. The information for both tours is exactly the same - only the date is different - the 13th instead of the 6th. Pre-registration is required. There is a crane viewing map on the web site as well - if you prefer to come up for viewing on your own. Birds leave refuge marshes at sunrise, forage on area croplands during the day, and then return to roost on the refuge at dusk. Their flights in and out of the refuge can be quite a spectacular experience!
We initiated refuge crane counts in September this year. The first week was 700, last week was 2,000, this week was 3,000. Numbers normally continue to build, with a peak in mid October. Last year our peak count was 7,524. However, St. Francis Pool, where cranes have traditionally roosted on the refuge at night, is completely dry (so far) this year. Birds have shifted to Fox Pool, on the very northwestern corner of the refuge, but that pool is quite a bit smaller than St. Francis, so it will be interesting to see what impact this makes on numbers of migrating birds the refuge will host. Will they use other refuge pools? Will they blow through for parts farther south? Or will we get some significant rain soon, so that St. Francis Pool will refill, allowing birds to move over to their traditional (roomier) roost site? Only time will tell. Our Fall Wildlife Festival is on Saturday, September 29 from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. We'll have lots of booths and activities about birds, butterflies, reptiles and amphibians and other wildlife. Stan Tekiela is our featured guest with talks at 11:00 and 1:00. Click on our website link above for more detailed information! Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
