There was great early March birding out there today......correction....There was so-so mid April birding today. Across just a small part of rural Carver County I estimated 190 Horned Lark, 102 Lapland Longspur(4 locations), and 32 Snow Bunting. I also estimated 860 Dark-eyed Junco this morning with most of those along rural roads.
The Rapids Lake trail along the river is covered with anywhere from 1-4 inches of snow(mainly 2-3 in most areas). Rapids Lake select count Gadwall 150 Blue-winged Teal 15 Green-winged Teal 50 Ring-necked Duck 200 Great Blue Heron 4 American Woodcock 2 Yellow-bellied Sapsucker 4 Eastern Phoebe 3 (silent birds(moved off of territory) and feeding along the Minnesota River) Tree Swallow 3 (including one bird that arrived to the small open water section of Rapids Lake(latest the lake has been ice covered) early in the morning only to promptly turn around and head south) Golden-crowned Kinglet 12 Ruby-crowned Kinglet 2 Eastern Bluebird 1 Hermit Thrush 4 Yellow-rumped Warbler 1 (first female of the year) American Tree Sparrow 32 Fox Sparrow 9 Song Sparrow 12 Swamp Sparrow 1 ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
