Birds never stop surprising me. I was leaving Miller Hill Mall Sunday evening (Aug. 18) and noticed not "just" the more expected Canada Geese and Killdeer at the little catch pond that drains the JC Penney parking lot , but also a Lesser Yellowlegs, a Semipalmated Sandpiper, and three Baird's Sandpipers. Cars were constantly roaring past only feet away on Miller Trunk Highway, yet the birds seemed happy to ignore the traffic and chow down on whatever they were finding in the muck and litter. I hope the "mall food" agrees with them.
I've posted a "habitat shot" I took with my point-and-shoot with three of the peeps tiny in the frame here<http://www.flickr.com/photos/87096929@N06/9545192428/in/photostream/lightbox/>at Flickr, and a map of the "JC Penney/Firestone" pond marked with a blue pin at http://goo.gl/maps/jTC3U, so anyone not familiar with the area can get a flying bird's-eye view too. With all the available habitat in the Duluth-Superior area, these birds migrating from the far north somehow chose this little mud hole in the mall desert and brightened my afternoon. Keep binoculars handy because you just never know! Chris Mansfield ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
