I had the great satisfaction of working the MOU booth behind the DNR building at the state fair on Saturday morning. Not only did I run into more people that I knew while at the booth than probably the last ten years, but some of the interactions were memorable. Birders I knew included Stan Tekiela, Sparky Stensaas, and Dr. Christine Hills.
Some of the memorable interactions included: - A man walked up and points to the Burrowing Owl on the owl poster there and announces that he has seen that one. Turns out that he saw it on his mother's farm in Swift County in 2014. He told me that a pair had moved into an abandoned coyote den and had fledged two young. I looked up on the MOU site and determined that it was unreported. He said that he was not surprised that no one else saw it as it was more than a mile from the nearest road. I then showed him the map of Burrowing Owl reports in the state. He was unimpressed by all the dots, until I explained that they all represented less than 5 reports or probably only one bird. He said as he left, "Mom will be thrilled when I tell her how rare the owl was!" I gave him my email address (and the MOU website info) and asked him to contact me if he had any questions or more good sightings. - A woman asked me to ID a bird song she recorded. I don't remember what it was, but then she asked me to ID another. She played it and I said, "This is not from Minnesota. Is it from Florida?" She confirmed it was. I pulled up a cane toad and played its song, which matched. I don't think it was a song that that many of our bird experts would have ID'd correctly. It is probably the first non-Minnesota recording I have been asked to ID. Steve Weston On Quigley Lake in Eagan, MN [email protected] <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> Virus-free. www.avg.com <http://www.avg.com/email-signature?utm_medium=email&utm_source=link&utm_campaign=sig-email&utm_content=webmail> <#DAB4FAD8-2DD7-40BB-A1B8-4E2AA1F9FDF2> ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
