Hey birders,
My Big Day Team (Andrew Krenz, Trent Robbins, Benji Inniger, and myself) did a big day in Blue Earth County yesterday (21 May 2014). I wasn't sure how well we would do because the day before there had been a lot of movement and the conditions were good Tuesday night for migration (so many were expected to leave). Andrew and I did about 6 hours of scouting on Tuesday and located 130 species! Summary: 12:30am-9:00pm. We saw a total of 15 waterfowl, 4 grebes, 4 herons, 8 hawks, 18 shorebirds, 6 gulls/terns, 2 owls, 5 woodpeckers, 8 flycatchers, 5 vireos, 6 swallows, 5 thrushes, 17 warblers, 11 sparrows, 10 blackbirds. Total species: 160 (a new Blue Earth County record!). The first couple of stops in the early morning were enshrouded in ground-hugging fog. Sora, Virginia Rail, and American Bittern sounded off at our second stop with a Barred Owl testing the silence of the night in the distance. It had the feeling of a great day of birding before us. The listening conditions would be excellent until about right before dawn when the wind started to pick up, but in spite of that we got skunked on Eastern Screech-Owl and Long-eared Owl (2 species we've had in the past). The only Great Horned Owls we got were a pair of hungry nestlings screeching around 4:00am. The dawn-site we selected this year was the Watonwan WPA, a site we had never used before. Its proximity to the wooded riparian area along the Watonwan River led us to believe that we could get wetland birds, grassland birds, and woodland birds all very close to dawn. While this was true, the angle of the rising sun and the woodland meant that we were staring at silhouettes of many of our warblers (not the best). We also wanted to get to Lincoln WPA to get Upland Sandpiper and Henslow's Sparrow shortly after dawn (we missed both). The day before we had had numerous Scarlet Tanagers and many warblers but we had to work for our warblers on Wednesday. We killed a lot of time at Minneopa and adjacent Williams Nature Park trying to mop up the ones we missed at our migrant traps we went through in the early morning. Lunch came around 2pm when we decided that we just needed to get on to the shorebird part of the program. We had a few shorebirds on our list at that point, highlighted by a Red-necked Phalarope that flew in briefly at Lincoln WPA but we knew there was lots of shorebird habitat still to come. At lunch we were a very tired group. It had been a long day already and the long walks for warblers had taken their toll. We hit the Subway, picked up Benji who had to miss the morning, and headed to Land of Memories City Park in Mankato with the hopes of finding one of the resident Cooper's Hawks or Peregrine Falcons while we ate and assessed our list. We parked in one of the campsites and started to get organized when I glanced at the sky and noted an odd *Buteo* passing over. We're still not sure what it was because at that moment a Mississippi Kite came zipping in and chased after the bird! Somewhere in the process of me yelling and screaming (after picking my jaw off the ground), the other bird disappeared over the North Mankato ridge. We did get to enjoy the kite though as it thermalized and headed off to the north a minute later. We were now energized! We headed off to the northeast for stakeouts (Purple Martin, Sandhill Crane) and shorebird locations. A flooded field near the Lake Wita boat access was great the day before. As we pulled up, a flock of 30 Black-bellied Plovers came in. They joined Wilson's Phalarope, Semipalmated, Pectoral, Least, and Semipalmated Sandpipers, Dunlin, and Semipalmated Plovers that were already there. At Gilfillin Lake we picked up Great Egret and Lesser Scaup but were further excited by a winter-plumaged Black Tern which is unusual in the spring. Madison Lake yielded a winter-plumaged Bonaparte's Gull which was a great surprise as well. We then dropped down to Indian Lake which on big days past has produced some rarities and where Andrew and I had found Western Grebes and Canvasback the day before. Today it held our target birds but threw in a Red-necked Grebe and Eared Grebe just to fill out the list! We then headed to Hobza WMA which we learned from a chance meeting with a DNR technician was being drawn down and was a mudflat. This is located along CR14 south of CR168 and not far from the Cobb River/Perch Lake WPA complex. There were hundreds of shorebirds there alright and we picked up White-rumped and Stilt Sandpipers in the sprawl of birds. We then headed west toward Perch Lake and picked up a Sanderling in a flooded field along CR168 west of CR169. The pair of Trumpeter Swans that has been utilizing the WPA were there though they gave us a scare--they were tucked in the near marsh and just happened to peak up over the top of the cattails before we quit searching. The sun was setting fast and we still didn't have a Red-headed Woodpecker. We went to our usual location and several areas near there but struck out on that bird (a species we had seen several of the day before). Finally we pulled into the Maple River WMA to enjoy the last rays of light while looking for Common Gallinule and Least Bittern (both missed). The sunset on the Maple River WMA was a fitting end and as we tallied things up again (we thought we had tied the record of 157 at that point), we determined that I had forgotten to mark a couple of birds and found ourselves staring at that number of 160. What a great day! In fact, the last two days have been great with a total of 173 species seen in Blue Earth County. A lot of people would look at this day and say that our success was due to my knowledge of the county's birdlife and the flush of May migration. But I think that all of us would tell you that we just felt so blessed by God at every turn. We had an unplanned hike at Lincoln WPA after dawn that put us in position to see the Red-necked Phalarope that was there for less than a minute (Andrew wanted us to go look for a group of peeps that he saw fly in). The extra time spent warbling resulted in a lunch that was supposed to happen around 1pm being delayed--we ended up with a Mississippi Kite! I'm sure there were many more moments like that throughout the day. We were just blessed! Sorry about the length...I am still excited by the last couple of days. Happy birding! Chad Heins Mankato, MN “But ask the animals, and they will teach you, or the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Which of all these does not know that the hand of the Lord has done this? In His hand is the life of every creature and the breath of all mankind.” --Job 12: 7, 9, 10 ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
