This evening there were 18 Ruddy Turnstones at the Sleepy Eye Waste Treatment Ponds. Ten flew away but there were still 8 present when I left. There was also a flock of around 30 Red-necked Phalaropes. All of these birds were on or along the far eastern lagoon and the berm that divides the three ponds. There was a huge hatch of some sort of flying insect and this is what most of the birds seemed to be feasting on, mostly in the grass.
On a different subject, Mike Oetken, John Schladweiler, Alex Watson and myself did a Brown County Big Day last Sunday (18th). We were able to set a new Brown County record of 144 species. While we didn't turn up anything particularly unusual, we did have 18 species of shorebirds, 17 species of warbler and 10 species of sparrow for the day. A few highlights included 2 American Avocets and 2 American Black Ducks at the Sleepy Eye WTP's. A flooded field along County Rd. 10 east of Hwy. 4 had good numbers of shorebirds including Hudsonian and Marbled Godwit. We also found a Peregrine Falcon in flight at this same location. A notable miss for the day was Red-tailed Hawk! We kept expecting to see one somewhere and somehow they avoided us. Brian Smith ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
