Hey birders,
Andrew Krenz, Trent Robbins, and Aaron Pietsch joined me for our annual Big Day in the river valley. In recent years we have focused on a single county but after last year’s Big Day in Nicollet County where we slogged in the rain for 12 hours before quitting early, we decided to free up our boundaries a little this year and see where it took us. We spent time in LeSueur, Nicollet, Blue Earth, and Faribault (briefly) Counties. We had beautiful listening conditions for the first hour and then it got windy and cold. Those conditions probably contributed to a lower species total than we usually get and several “easy” species managed to get excluded as a result. Time out: 0000 to 2045 Summary: 153 species; 14 waterfowl, 3 grebes, 3 doves, 13 shorebirds, 5 gulls/terns, 7 herons, 6 hawks, 2 owls, 5 woodpeckers, 8 flycatchers, 3 vireos, 6 swallows, 5 thrushes, 3 finches, 12 sparrows, 18 warblers Notable misses: American Kestrel, Western Meadowlark, Lark Sparrow, Great Horned Owl, Eared Grebe Highlights: Seven Mile Creek County Park in Nicollet County had most of the warblers including Cerulean, Connecticut and Mourning. We also found Yellow-bellied Flycatcher, Veery, Swainson’s Thrush, Wood Thrush, White-throated Sparrow and Lincoln’s Sparrow there. We had 6 Cattle Egrets along Highway 14 at the Nicollet exit. They were in with some cows on the southwest corner of this junction and apparently this is not the first time that species has been seen there this spring per John Frentz. The “cattle pond” on the east side of CR111 north of Nicollet had Hudsonian Godwit, Short-billed Dowitcher, White-rumped, Pectoral, Least and Semipalmated Sandpipers and Dunlin. A flock of 30+ American Golden-Plovers came in and landed in the field just north of the pond as well. Stokman WMA in Minnesota Lake had Black-crowned Night-Heron, Green Heron, and Great Egret. Areas north of there along CR14 had decent shorebird habitat with flooded fields here and there. We had Dunlin, Short-billed Dowitcher, Wilson’s Phalarope, Pectoral, Least, Semipalmated, and White-rumped Sandpiper there too. On the north side of Minnesota Lake (the lake) there is a CRP at 599th Ave that had decent shorebird habitat. We picked up a Willet and a late Greater White-fronted Goose there. Happy birding! Chad Heins Mankato *Chad Heins* Associate Professor of Biology Bethany Lutheran College 700 Luther Drive Mankato, MN 56001 Office: 507.344.7327 | Toll Free: 800.944.3066 [email protected]| www.blc.edu ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
