I witnessed something pretty cool this morning. Seven pileated woodpeckers all in one yard down on Little Elk Lake in Sherburne County - SE of the refuge. They were chasing each other around the yard, hollering and pounding on trees - it was really something. Eventually, 4 of the birds left the yard going in two different directions. The remaining three settled down - one going to a suet feeder and the other two just hanging on the side of a large tree. I've never seen that many pileateds in one spot before.
On the south end of Rush Lake, where the outflow goes under the bridge, there's a lot of open water. Up to 100 trumpeter swans have been using this site, along with Canada geese, mallards, a few common goldeneye and common mergansers. This is along Sherburne CR 16 about 5-6 miles east of U.S. Hwy. 10, or 8-9 miles SW of Santiago. We had our first hooded merganser sighting on the St. Francis River behind our headquarters/office this morning. The river is opening up a lot more the last couple of days. Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
