Birded around Pope County for the last five days. Most was a desperate effort to fill in areas for the MBBA, but did manage a few hours of “personal birding”.
Most of the birds were your basic, garden variety birds – the ones you would expect to see around. But here are a few of my usual “unscientific” observations and sightings. 1. Waterfowl: The Mallard reproductive rate seems lower than usual. There are a few “normal” sized broods around (half grown with feathers) but not very many. I saw several Mallard broods that were less than a week old, (one at my farm) perhaps suggesting a second nesting effort resulting from an earlier failed nest. Anecdotal reports from farmers indicated fewer nests seen and molested during the first cutting of hay. So – for what it is worth, it is my opinion that the cold, wet spring has negatively impacted ground nesting. Wood ducks, on the other hand, are everywhere; large broods in some ponds. Cavity nesting may have insulated (no pun intended) them from some weather effects. Also, many people have installed nest boxes for them possible giving them another leg up on ground nesters. Pied-billed Grebes are doing well, typical families on the ponds. Good find – one family of Redheads, one Blue-winged Teal brood, and several individuals/pairs of Ruddy Ducks. No Ruddy chicks, though. One brood of young Cormorants. No young Pelicans, yet. 2. Upland game birds: Ring-necked Pheasants may also have suffered from the cold, wet spring. I saw no young birds and had only one anecdotal report of baby pheasants. Maybe some will still show up later in the season. 3. Pope County is doing its share in supporting the swallows and martins. I checked a couple Martin colonies and found many apartments occupied with young birds poking their heads out to get fed. I did not count the birds but both colonies have in excess of 30 apartments and more than half appear occupied. Many Barn, Tree, and Cliff Swallows (and a few Northern Rough-wings) are lining up on power lines – they appear to be recovering from the the tough conditions of a few years ago. There are some Chimney Swifts but primarily concentrated around Glenwood – may be time for some roosting/nesting towers. 4. Prairie and marsh birds: Most prairie species (except Dickcissel) are doing well. Clay-colored, Song, Field, and Vesper sparrows, Kingbirds, Sedge Wrens and Bobolinks are all over. Marsh species – Marsh Wrens, Swamp Sparrows, and Black Terns continue to do well in Pope County. There are juvenile Terns in many of the ponds including the areas I observed nests in June. Sandhill Cranes are around. Still no Grasshopper Sparrows. 5. Miscellaneous: The Coot chicks we saw hatching in June are still there and are now almost full grown – fun to see them “all grown up”. Dickcissels numbers are down – no birds in any of the areas I saw them in last season. The only ones this year are in some original prairie (now an organic pasture) south of Starbuck and the grassland around the old Lowry sewage ponds. Loons are around but no young observed. In June, I reported on the June 20th storm. It appears that woodland birds were impacted by this. One observer reported to me that he found several Baltimore Oriole nests on the ground. No eggs or young were found so maybe the young had fledged. If not, some of these birds perhaps did not survive. One last item – as I have previously reported, the Lowry sewage ponds were decommissioned a couple years ago and are about to go away. This is one of the few, maybe the only, reliable spot in the county for shorebirds. This week, there were Greater Yellowlegs, Spotted, Solitary, Least, Stilt, and Baird’s Sandpipers at the ponds. However, the bulldozers are on the move and I expect this is the last time we will see birds there. The same collection of shorebirds were at the lake on my farm. Maybe this will develop into shorebird habitat. Most potential shorebird habitat in the county consists of flooded farm fields (changeable and unreliable) or cattail wetlands (water and cattails but no mud). Sid Stivland Pope County (and Plymouth, MN) ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
