(Posted by Jason Frank <[email protected]> via moumn.org) A beautiful day in Yellow Medicine County, with low-level clouds, an intermittent breeze, and cold drizzle. The one peak of sun around noon coincided with another kettle of migrant Buteos in the skies along the State Line Road just east of Gary, SD, with 22 Broad-Wings, 7 Red Tails (all apparently juvenile) and 1 Swainson's.
This evening, I drove around Mound Spring and Sioux Nation WMAs in search of more hawks, and found my FOS Rough Legged Hawk, perched on a big round hay bale on 200th St, about a quarter-mile east of Yellow Med CR 15. For what it's worth, this is the earliest Rough Leg I've seen out here, the second-earliest being Oct 7, 2012. At Mound Spring, there was an airborne flock of 19 Killdeers making their way south, calling as my dog and I were out for a walk. The wild sunflowers at this location are incredible, entire hillsides are gleaming yellow. The sudden onslaught of cool nights and dreary days have drawn out the autumn crop of oyster mushrooms emerging, from dead cottonwoods and box elders in the creekside woodlands. Big flocks of Flickers are passing through; White-Throated Sparrows and a few stray Juncos, FOS for me, have shown up as well. WMA and WPA wetlands are conspicuously (and depressingly) devoid of waterfowl in Lac qui Parle and Yellow Medicine Counties. The silence surrounding a million acres of Minnesota CRP lost to King Corn since the year 2000 is deafening. Jason Frank Lac qui Parle ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
