Thanks to Jake Langeslag and Ken Vail for their willingness to observe, report, and share special birds. Today we were able to see for only the third time ever, and firs time in Minnesota, a Spotted Towhee. After a short wait, it came out of hiding to forage in the abundance of ground food provided, along with heated birdbath, feeders stocked with variety, and sheltering brush piles. It fed with the typical ground-raking motion, favoring the millet. There was constant traffic from many other species as well, including a Common Redpoll and a Brown Creeper ground-feeding, which I had never witnessed before.
Afterwards, we scoured the Snowy Owl area in Dodge County for around an hour and a half, happening in the process upon Ken, who was also searching again. We tried for awhile longer and were finally ready to give up at around 5:15. Because Ken had mentioned seeing one of the birds fly north from 700th and we had not found any on 690th, we decided to exit from 120th Ave heading west on 685th St (CR J). That was where we found the very white Snowy at 5:25, perched on the 4th utility pole east of the large farmstead (houses and silos opposite each other on both sides of the road). It was unfazed by our car, continuing to scan the far fields as it balanced against the wind. This is a link to a map Rob made of its location: short URL http://goo.gl/maps/jPJI1 Thanks again, Jake and Ken! Linda Whyte ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
