After being held prisoner for 3 days, I had to get out when the rain finally quit this afternoon. At Afton SP I still did not see Henslow's sparrow. Pam Albin had told me she thought she had heard them a few days ago. I did hear and record some songs which apparently were Henslow's sparrows. Unlike last year, when they were easily seen, they are not showing themselves at all. They are in the same place. North entrance trail. Go south about 100-200 yards. They were on the east side of the trail. Just to confuse the issue, eastern meadowlarks in this area give a similar call. Most of the time the meadowlarks call is 3 or 4 notes - unlike the Henslow's which is 2 notes. Sometimes the meadowlarks call only 2 notes. I suppose someone with good ears would not confuse the two because the Henslow's is higher frequency.
Later I continued on and thought I heard the summer tanager. I thought I was hearing the exact call that Julian Sellers recorded last July at that location (I have it saved on iPOD). When I got home I could not find any recordings that I could identify as summer tanager. Wind interference made it difficult. I'll have to try again on a quite day. Other birds see were - eastern towhee, rose breasted grosbeak (not too different from the summer tanager song), clay colored sparrows, eastern meadowlarks, field sparrows, eastern bluebirds, brown thrasher. ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
