Hi After stopping briefly in Rosemount where we saw four kestrels, two of them by the power pant where they nested last year my wife and i got down to the 180th street marsh around ten a.m. this morning. We saw a pied billed grebe in the south west pool but nothing else then on the north west pool we saw maybe 200 Coots and several redheads, a couple of bufflehead, half a dozen ruddy ducks, ring necks and a few shovelers. Next we went to the north east pool and saw maybe 100 or so greater white fronted geese and to our surprise two what looked to be Ross’s Geese. Other birders in the area confirmed this. We also saw a flock of fifteen to twenty tundra swans, two of which landed in this same pool. As we searched the pool with binoculars and scopes we also saw three then another two wilson’s snipe, half a dozen green winged teal, a dozen or so blue winged teal, Canada Geese , a dozen sandhill cranes flew overhead and one birder saw a Woodcock but I did not see it. Later in the day when we returned to this pool we saw two white geese in the distance that someone had reported were Ross’s Geese but they were larger than the Ross’s and looked to some of my birding friends more like snow geese. I think that the Ross’s geese swam right or east out of sight and then these two appeared in a more distant part of the pond and since others were reporting ross’s geese some assumed that that was what these were. The Ross’s geese have smaller bills and are much smaller than the Snow geese. In the south east pond there were at least fifty northern shovelers and some snipe and later on some wigeons. We also saw a couple of killdeer. My wife and i then continued down to the industrial park in Randolph where we saw at least half a dozen meadowlarks, I’m assuming that they were probably eastern as I’m not that good at identifying the difference between eastern and western. I have some photos and I listed them all as eastern, if anyone sees a western in there please feel free to let me know. We also saw a northern Harrier flying over the field very low and in the pond behind the church we saw some what I think are lesser yellowlegs and some shovelers and ring necks. I also saw a northern harrier near the 180th street marsh just west of it. Here is my link to some of my photos from the day. I posted this because a young woman with her grandmother requested that I do it. Ron Taube Coon Rapids https://www.flickr.com/photos/ronsthoughts/with/16999187496/ <https://www.flickr.com/photos/ronsthoughts/with/16999187496/>
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