On Saturday and Sunday my brother Marv, Kevin Smith, and I birded our way down the western side of the state from the North Ottawa impoundment in Grant County to Blue Mound State Park. The best shorebird spot, as expected, was the North Ottawa impoundment, where we had:
125 Great Egret 2 American Avocet 3 Black-belied Plover 6 Semipalmated Plover 35 Killdeer 12 Spotted Sandpiper 23 Greater Yellowlegs 48 Lesser Yellowlegs 14 Stilt Sandpipers 3 Baird's Sandpipers >30 Least Sandpipers 25 Pectoral Sandpipers 20 Semipalmated Sandpipers >100 peep species 8 Short-billed/Long-billed Dowitchers 2 Wilson's Snipes ...plus a variety of waterfowl and other birds. The larger numbers here are on the conservative side. We saw the small group of dowitchers when we first drove up at the south end and scanned the area. Unfortunately, by the time we turned our scopes back to look at them more closely, they had left. The best find of the trip was a fallow field in Stevens County just south of Chokio, which had been flooded earlier and was now mostly mud and grass. When we stopped to scan it, we found 46 Buff-breasted Sandpipers (thanks to Kevin for doing the count!), 17 American Golden Plovers, and one Black-bellied Plover. The location was the SE corner of 270th St. and 620th Ave. Other good birds on the trip were Red-necked Phalaropes (several locations), Semipalmated Plovers (Rock Co.), Eared Grebes (Hancock WTP and Salt Lake), Red-necked Grebe (Salt Lake), Blue Grosbeaks (Blue Mounds SP), Forster's Tern (N. Ottawa Impoundment), Loggerhead Shrike (Yellow Medicine Co.), Peregrine Falcon (Big Stone NWR), Upland Sandpiper (Big Stone NWR), and Eurasian Collared-Dove (Chokio). We found large flocks of Franklin's Gulls all over; we estimated more than 2000 at the Osakis WTP alone. Since we were already in Rock County visiting Blue Mounds SP, we decided to check the spot where the Least Terns had been seen last week, even though Roy Z. had reported that they were no longer there. No Least Terns, only two Black Terns. However, we did find numerous shorebirds foraging there—mostly Lesser Yellowlegs; Least, Semipalmated, and Pectoral Sandpipers; a few Baird's Sandpipers; one Stilt Sandpiper; and Semipalmated Plovers. Great weekend! Good birding to all. Gerry Hoekstra Northfield ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
