I wanted to go out and try for the Glossy Ibis today but with my 6 and 9 year old girls with me in the car it was too long of a haul. I checked ebird and noticed quite a few shorebirds were reported at Sanborn Lake this morning by Douglas Kieser and Brad Abendroth, including a Hudsonian Godwit. So I took my kids here instead and it turned out to be an amazing location. With the bad news lately about the 140th Street marsh I thought it would be nice to hear some good news. Lake Sanborn is being managed for migratory shorebirds and waterfowl in conjunction with several entities and it appears they are doing an impressive job. This "lake" is a very large mudflat and perfect for shorebirds and seemed to be isolated and buffered enough from the surrounding farmland to be relatively pristine. It is not an ebird hotspot but if they keep managing it the way it looked today it is sure to attract an impressive array of shorebirds. The one problem with the location is not from a wildlife/ conservation standpoint but from an accessibility standpoint. The north access to the lake by way of taking 164 straight south from 320th St. was a nice place to get out and place the scope but the birds were simply too far away. This means you need to access the lake from the south and it is a little confusing. From 340th St. you need to take 137th north. There is a driveway that is just to the east that parallels 137th. Both locations have a nice little parking area but I don't think they get many visitors considering different locals drove up to my car in each location to check out what I was doing. At the southern access point there is also a very steep hill to traverse down and then you have to walk out through cattails and place your scope at the end. DO NOT step in the mud beyond the cattails as you would sink at least 2 feet immediately (my older daughter was using sticks to measure the mud.) Once you are there the wildlife is incredible and there is even surrounding forest that would make this location good during warbler migration as well. I heard a Pileated Woodpecker and Barred Owl in the woods, indicating good habitat. Another bit of good news is that the dapper Hudsonian Godwit, a species whose populations are declining and are only around 70,000 worldwide, is getting a lot of conservation attention on its wintering grounds. Check out this link https://whsrn.org/canada-adds-hudsonian-godwit-to-threatened-species-list/. At the end of the article it talks about how 15 years of research led Chile to designate a large island wilderness area as a nature sanctuary for Hudsonian Godwits and Red Knots, two gorgeous species in desperate need of conservation. I know the Glossy Ibis gets a lot more attention in Minnesota because it is more rare here but to me the Hudsonian Godwit is an incredible species, especially in its handsome breeding attire! Jason Caddy South Minneapolis j.ca...@hotmail.com [https://whsrn.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/hugo_threatened_featureimage.jpg]<https://whsrn.org/canada-adds-hudsonian-godwit-to-threatened-species-list/> Canada Adds Hudsonian Godwit to Threatened Species List<https://whsrn.org/canada-adds-hudsonian-godwit-to-threatened-species-list/> This spring, the Committee on the Status of Endangered Wildlife in Canada (COSEWIC) added the Hudsonian Godwit (Limosa haemastica) to its growing list of “wildlife species in danger of disappearing from Canada.”The committee convenes twice a year to designate species at risk of extinction with a status of Special Concern, Threatened, or Endangered. whsrn.org
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