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From: Laura Coble [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Monday, December 24, 2007 11:21 AM To: 'mnbird at lists.mnbird.net' Subject: New Red Wing Circle CBC On Saturday, 12/22/07, a team of 17 birders restored the Red Wing Christmas Bird Count, last covered in 1973. Despite dangerous icy weather in many parts of southeastern MN, plus other unexpected events which kept 8 of the enthusiastic volunteers at home, the remaining birders found 45 species (now possibly 46) in this area: Red Wing; south, east and southeast of Red Wing, including a part of Wabasha County; Frontenac State Park and south of the park; and a small area of Wisconsin, across the Mississippi River. The birding weather for Red Wing and the circle turned out to be fine until the middle of the pm, when it became much colder, and the wind picked up. There were some icy roads in the southern area.The highest Red Wing CBC report between 1905 and 1973 was 49. These volunteers are some of the best in Minnesota, personally and as birders. They quickly took over the extra group area divisions which needed to be covered. There were at least five other volunteers and several employees who work with MN Audubon, National Audubon, and Goodhue County, who were essential to this count restoration. Some of the highlights or interesting sightings: 2 Tufted Titmice (at two separate feeders; one of the feeders normally has 2) 2 Brown Creepers 8 Gray Partridges 14 Rough-legged Hawks 49 Pine Siskins 10 Snow Buntings 1 Belted Kingfisher 4 Ruffed Grouse 96 American Robins 60 Red-winged Blackbirds The complete count will be posted on the MN Audubon and National Audubon websites. If you would like to see our new circle maps which were made by Goodhue County, please e-mail me. If you're interested in one of the bird locations, I'll get you the information. We are all looking forward to next year, and hope some of you may want to join our team! Laura Coble Cannon Falls, MN Goodhue County -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20071224/cb41d436/attachment.html

