This afternoon the sound of tapping led me to a male Three-toed Woodpecker in northeastern Crow Wing County. The bird was initially in the southeast corner of the intersection of CR1 and Low's Lake Rd (about 2.3 miles from the Aitkin County line). It later flew across CR1 to the north side and was last seen about 80 feet into the trees there. It appeared the bird had spent a lot of time on the south side of the road where there were a number of trees worked over. I was able to contact several people in the area - Barb and Denny Martin, Milt Blomberg and Frank Gosiak, and Butch Ukura and Warren Nelson - who were able to get there and see the bird.
After almost everyone had left, I decided to do a more thorough check of the area and found a male Black-backed Woodpecker in the same general area. There is a power line going south from CR1 a few hundred yards west of the above intersection, and this bird was on the north side of CR1 directly across from that powerline. Barb and Denny were fortunately still around to see this bird. Also seen in the vicinity were 2 Gray Jays, a couple of Pine Grosbeaks, and a flock of about 20 White-winged Crossbills. Herb Dingmann St. Cloud ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html