Yesterday Ron Erpelding and I made to trip to western Minnesota to see if we could find more Snowy Owls. We were fairly successful, finding a Snowy Owl in each of 4 different counties:
Douglas County: 4 miles north of Osakis on CR3 (there had been a previously reported bird 6 miles north of Osakis) Grant County: CR12, just west of where 320th Ave goes south. This is near the western edge of the county. Traverse County: CR64 goes east, south, and back west off of CR15 in the southeastern corner of the county. The Owl was in the field at the southeast corner of CR64. Big Stone County: 690th Ave about 1/2 mile north of 260th St (also called CR54 on the streetsign, but is labeled as CR2 on my map). This is in the northeast corner of the county. Today Ron was busy with family doings, so I went on my own intending to check a few more counties. I spent most of the day in Pope County without finding a Snowy Owl there. However, I did find one on the Stevens/Pope county line (400th Ave) on the Stevens County side of the road. This location is south of Cyrus (Pope County) about 6 miles, midway between 250th St. and 260th St. These two streets are in Stevens County, but correspond to what they would be if they continued into Pope County. Use caution in exploring these areas. There are many "No Maintenance" roads out there. All of these birds are on maintained roads, but even these roads can have some drifts since the last snowplow went through. 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
