We walked the Hillside trail and part of the Long Meadow Lake trail at the Minnesota Valley NWR (where the VC is located) this morning between 10:30 and 12:30--great birding!
19 W. Pelicans spiraling higher and higher into the sky until they were lost to sight; 4 Sandhill Cranes in flight (later on I observed one Sandhill Crane and one Bald Eagle circling each other at a respectful distance but in perfect circles for quite a long time--never seen anything like it); 3 adult Bald Eagles flying above the river and 2 juveniles cavorting with each other in the sky doing something like a mating dance (?); 1 Northern Harrier; 1 Broad-winged Hawk; 1 Egret and 1 Gt. Blue Heron; Mallards and Geese; 1 Northern Flicker; 1 Red-bellied Woodpecker; lots of Song Sparrows everywhere; 2 Fox Sparrows; 1 Hermit Thrush; 2 E. Phoebe at different spots; 1 E. Bluebird (appeared to be a female); Grackles; Red-winged Blackbirds; plus the usual year-round birds (e.g. several Nuthatches chasing each other;). Still lots of Juncos around. We had hoped to see the A. Bittern and the Harris's Sparrows again that we saw in that area last year around this time, but no luck. ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
