I decided to check out a report of American Golden Plover at the very northeastern tip of Albert Lea Lake that Dedrick Benz reported on the database last Sunday (9/8). I was expecting them to be gone but was happy to find 50 of them on the mudflats on the south side of the road (CR46) along with several other shorebirds. CR46 is the road that goes east from the large travel center at the I35 exchange south of I90. There is a lot of traffic on CR46 so you will need to park beyond the roadside barriers and walk (carefully) back to the area along the side of the road where you can view the birds.
Since this is only about 30 miles south of the spot near Rice Lake where there were hundreds of Golden Plovers present a week or so ago, I decided to see if any were still at that site on my way home. I didn't see any there at all (although I didn't use my scope for a thorough search). As a matter of fact the only bird I saw was a single Baird's Sandpiper in the ponds on the east side of the road. I also heard some Sandhill Cranes calling when I was at a small park WSW of Twin Lakes (south of Albert Lea on US69). They are only occasionally seen in the county in the fall. Trees blocked my view but they were probably on the west end of Lower Twin Lake. Bob Ekblad Olmsted County in SE Minnesota http://www.Birding-Minnesota.com ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
