Took the day off today and did some birding at Whitewater SP, with a stop on the way home at Lake Byllesby. Here are highlights:
Whitewater SP: Yellow-throated Warbler - male still present at the nature store parking lot, started singing at @700AM. He was still vigorously singing at 830AM and 930AM when I passed back through. Louisiana Waterthrushes - at least 2 individuals heard/seen along the Trout Creek run trail (at the previously described location, and a little ways before the end loop of the trail). Also heard another singing male near the stream behind the group camp site (from the "Valley" Trail). Tufted Titmice - 4-5 singing birds heard while walking the "Dakota", "Valley", and "Meadow" trails in a long loop starting across the road from the nature store parking lot. Lake Byllesby (@1130-1200) Great mudflats visible from the county park entrance off of Hwy./Cty. Rd 88 (near the intersection w/ 56). The heat distortion was terrible, but in all I saw about 75 shorebirds on the flats. I wasn't able to positively ID most of them, but here's what I was able to pick out: Greater Yellowlegs - 1 Dunlin - 2 White-rumped Sandpiper - 10 Semipalmated Sandpiper - 1 Semipalmated Plover - 1 Killdeer - 3 As I said, there is a lot of good habitat there right now, and there were a lot of birds on the flats. Most were "peep" sized birds. I thought I might have seen a few Sanderlings mixed in, but I'm unsure - they were far out and uncooperative. Would probably be worth the effort to check them out this evening once the heat distortion lessens. Good birding, Andy Forbes ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
