Yesterday morning, May 6, a possible (or probable!) male Townsend's Warbler was seen very briefly in Lac Qui Parle County. The location was along the W side of Lac Qui Parle Lake, along Co Rd 33, 1.8 mi N of the entrance to Lac Qui Parle State Park. There is a small pull-out here, and the bird was visible for just a second or two by a few of us in the thick cover, which includes some planted pines/junipers on the lake side of the road. It promptly disappeared and could not be relocated by the Minn Birding Weekends (MBW) group at that time or when some of us returned early in the afternoon.
Because we could not find it again and since we did not see it well enough for a positive ID, I did not call anyone yesterday to post the sighting on mou-net, but in hindsight perhaps I should have: I just learned today that vagrant Townsend's Warblers were seen and photographed this weekend in Cook County near Chicago and at Rondeau Provincial Park in SW Ontario not far from Detroit, suggesting that this species has been wandering out of range recently. The other interesting thing about our sighting is that this is exactly the same location where a Townsend's Warbler was seen and documented in April 1994 (see The Loon 66:61-62), and another was seen and photographed the same day in the western part of the county! Other birds of note seen by the MBW group this past weekend, May 5-6, in and around the Lac Qui Parle & Marsh lakes area included a Blue-gray Gnatcatcher along the Louisburg Rd, just N of Lac Qui Parle Co Rd 38; a total of 13 (or was it 14?) warbler species, including a very early Mourning Warbler; and a Lark Sparrow at the entrance to Lac Qui Parle State Park. High winds and frequent rain showers certainly made for some difficult birding, but at the same time the weather blew in and grounded lots of migrant passerines (especially thrushes). Kim Eckert -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/enriched Size: 1926 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20070507/ea0c5f93/attachment.bin