Reports of a Yellow-breasted Chat at Hyland Park Reserve in Bloomington drew me there for the daily exercise walk. Starting right across the street from the beach parking lot and just by the pond, I made a loop south-east-north-west, starting and ending where I think the Chat was reported. Purposely included in the loop was the site where a Chat spent the summer a few years ago. The moist field, with lots of small trees and shrubs, seems well suited to Chats. On the first pass there were flashes of brown, black, yellow and white but they all belonged to the Common Yellow-throat Warbler On the return pass there were intriguing Chat-like sounds that seemed to match what was on my recordings ( I listen through earphones and try to compare/contrast with what I hear in the field.) An extended search to see the singer yielded only a couple of fly-by views of what I'm reasonably sure was a very melodious Gray Catbird. On another note I did find Dickcissels at Randolph Industrial Park this afternoon. They were north of the lot with the church, songing on both sides of the road.
Linda ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
