Paul Egeland, Esther Gesick and I spent the past three days birding various parts of southwest MN. For the most part songbird migration was lacking. Sparrows in particular were absent and only a few kinglets and yellow-rumped warblers were observed compared to other areas of the state where these are abundant.
But some decent birds were found as follows: Two Short-eared Owls and two LeConte's Sparrows at Touch-the-Sky Prairie NWR on Friday. A calling Black-crowned Night Heron after sunset at the quarry ponds just south of Blue Mounds State Park on Friday. Also at the quarry ponds, two Great Egrets, a difficult to find species in this part of the state, on Saturday morning. 10 American Avocets were at the Pipestone WTP on Saturday. Both the Pipestone WTP and Miedd Lake in Yellow Medicine county were loaded with ducks. Miedd Lake's water level is too high at present for any shorebirds. On a tip from Garrett Wee, Lone Tree Lake, just northwest of the town of Cottonwood, has exposed shoreline and produced some shorebirds on Thursday and Saturday. Dowitchers, Dunlin, both Yellowlegs and Pectoral Sandpipers were observed. In Rock county, there are some flooded fields south of the town of Ash Creek that have potential for more shorebirds. We saw Yellowlegs, Dowitchers, Pectoral Sandpipers and Wilson's Snipe here the past two days. The flooded fields are on the west side of 140th Ave located about 1.5 miles north of the Iowa state line or roughly 1.5 miles south of Ash Creek. Anyone in this area in the coming weeks may want to check these out. Regards,,, ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
