Here at Northern Flights Farm in Clearwater county, Friday March 29th, a Robin complained bitterly from the Secret Garden, the first migrant detected in my yard this Spring. It had every right to complain given the foot and a half of snow still on the ground. The first skein of northbound Canada Geese prompted a late day run to check for possible open water resulting in the following FOY Clearwater county birds. 7 Trumpeter Swan 5 C. Goldeneye 2 C. Merganser 4 Hooded Merganser Most waterfowl were found on the Clearwater River at Clearwater Lake 6 Great Blue Heron (three seen in Bagley following the frozen Clearwater River up and down) 2 Killdeer, one at the school in Clearwater, the other along the river edge near Clearwater Lake 5 Sandhill Cranes, all in the vicinity of the rice paddies north of Clearwater and close to Berner. 1 N. Harrier, a beautiful male coursing the ditch on cty 5 along the rice paddies
On Saturday March 30th I visited Polk, Pennington and Red Lake counties. Observed in all counties were numerous flocks of Snow Bunting and Horned Lark. Polk Sharp-tailed Grouse - 23 Bald Eagle - 1 Rough-legged Hawk - 4 Merlin -1 Gull sp -1 (Herring Gull?) Black-billed Magpie - 3 Red Lake Sharp-tailed Grouse -15 Sandhill Crane - 4 Rough-legged Hawk -1 Black-billed Magpie - 2 Pennington Sharp-tailed Grouse - 42 Bald Eagle - 1 Rough-legged Hawk - 4 American Kestrel - 1 Northern Harrier - 2 Black-billed Magpie - 19 (one group of 15 birds going to roost in an Alder swamp) Kelly Larson Northern Flights Farm Clearwater County Bagley, Minnesota Eschew Obfuscation! The middle of Nowhere is Somewhere! ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
