Greetings Friends, On Saturday, September 1, I'll be leading a free MOU Field Trip in Lac qui Parle, Big Stone, and Chippewa Counties. This will be our first organized shorebird excursion covering the Salt Lake route during the fall season.
Right now, I'm planning to meet and assemble into a caravan at 8:00 AM in Montevideo, in the McDonald's parking lot, south side of Highway 7 at the east end of town. I'm willing to change the meeting time to 9:00 AM if that would be easier for anyone coming from the other side of the state. The itinerary isn't set in stone, but here is the basic game plan: We'll head north to Lac qui Parle State Park and Refuge. The bottomland woods and river eddies should be good for warblers, woodpeckers, and waterfowl. From there, we'll head northwest to Marsh Lake and hit the WMAs between Louisburg and Odessa, through Lac qui Parle WMA and Big Stone NWR, with potential visits to Artichoke Lake and/or Big Stone Lake State Park. From there, we can make our way south to Plover Prairie, with the latter half of the trip focusing on Salt Lake and the excellent WMAs of central Lac qui Parle. We also have the option of swinging by Mound Spring Prairie SNA/WMA (western Yellow Med Co) in the evening; the juvenile Sharp-Tailed Grouse that were hatched there have dispersed, and tend to favor the northern section for their evening roost. They generally show up half an hour before sunset. This will be a great time and location for: -Southbound shorebirds like Dowitchers, Phalaropes, Sandpipers and Plovers, and maybe some Avocets. -First year hawks dispersing and prepping for southward migration; we stand a good chance of finding Swainson's and Ferruginous this time of year. -Blue Grosbeaks (quite a few gravel pits in the territory) -Red-Headed Woodpeckers, which have done remarkably well this year; there are five sites where I've witnessed repeated breeding activity this summer. Drop me a line if you're interested. We'll be in the field all day, so please pack lunches and water. We'll break for lunch at Big Stone NWR. Thanks and happy birding, -- Jason M. Frank Founder and Vice President, Luddite Ornithologists League (LOL) [email protected] >From the Lovely Land of Lac qui Parle https://turnstonecreations.smugmug.com/ Sent from my invisible blue Homing Pigeon ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
