Sighting American Robins is seldom exciting to most, but this winter it has been exciting for me. I live on Grey Cloud Island in far southwest Washington County. Where co. rd. #75 on Upper Grey Cloud Island intersects with Pioneer Road there is a plantation of trees. I observed large numbers of robins arriving at this plantation to roost for the night. The first evening I started counting I quit at 900, but the robins continued to arrive from the direction of the Mississippi River to the west. A week later I got serious and started observing and counting one hour before sunset until it was quite dark, and I counted over 2,000 robins. I also went to observe them leaving the roost in the morning, arriving while still dark. The first robins left when just silhouettes and within an hour they had all gone, flying off to the west. Coming in at night the birds first perch in some surrounding deciduous trees and wait till almost dark before disappearing into the crowded spruce and pine trees. When the weather improved last week I again counted and there were fewer birds, which I thought might be the case, but I still counted 1,300 robins coming to roost. This is by far the most robins I have seen at this time of year, and some of you will doubt my observations, and that is o.k. If you come to see, plan on arriving a bit before sunset. I have not seen many listings of Snow Buntings, so I should have posted this last Friday (2/26) when I observed about 20 Snow Buntings in Washington County, within Cottage Grove, on 100th Street N., east of Kimbro Avenue about 1/3 mile.
Tom Bell Grey Cloud Island 5868 Pioneer Rd. S. St. Paul Park, MN 55071 651 459-4150 ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html