Just received an e-mail from Ric Zarwell about his sighting yesterday of an adult male Smew on the Mississippi River at Lock & Dam #9 in Allamakee County, Iowa. Following is the link to his report on the Iowa listserv:
http://birding.aba.org/message.php?mesid=1645801&MLID=IA&MLNM=Iowa <http://birding.aba.org/message.php?mesid=1645801&MLID=IA&MLNM=Iowa> This is only about a 23-mile drive south of Minnesota, so perhaps it’s something Minnesota birders would be interested in. Note, however, that the possibility exists that this bird is an escape or release from captivity, as was the case with at least two sightings in MN. Minnesota’s only accepted record is from 1999 in Jackson County (interestingly enough, also in March), but that record is qualified as origin unknown – i.e., the possibilities of wild vs. escape were considered about equal. Kim Eckert, Duluth ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
