[mou] YCNH refound
The yellow crowned night heron in Willmar, Kandiyohi county, was seen again both Saturday and Sunday. (I did not have time to post earlier, sorry.) Although I have been searching daily for the bird, without success, it was again at the Berquist park- where it was originally seen - on Saturday. However, it was seen late morning (about 11:00 a.m.) AND was not near the water but instead was walking down the west trail. I presume it was eating worms after the rain. That suspicion was confirmed when on Sunday morning about 6:15 (while looking for warblers at Robin's Island) I found what I presume to be the same bird hunting for and eating worms. It was walking around on the mowed grass about 80 to 90 yards from water and just north of the first (Guri?) shelter. Robin's Island is about 2 miles from the Berquist area and essentially on the same body of water. I know the bird does NOT regularly hang out at the Berquist area because there is too much human traffic here and the area is so small. I wonder if it doesn't end up here by default when chased from other areas. Anyone wanting directions to either location, please let me know. Randy Frederickson Willmar
[mou] Ceruleans at Murphy-Hanrehan
As the Cerulean Warbler is a Neotropical migratory bird of high conservation concern, experiencing population declines in parts of its range (Cornell Lab of Ornithology), we were pleased to hear good numbers of them in Murphy-Hanrehan Park Reserve on Saturday morning. In several hours in the northern part of the reserve (the 1-2-3 loop and the 12-13-14-15 loop, etc.), we saw or heard at least eight Ceruleans, even though there was intermittent rain and many birds were silent (e.g. even Tennessee Warblers, though present, were not singing!) The Ceruleans were almost all in the canopy and hard to see. We saw a total of 15 species of warblers in the poor conditions. It does appear that migration is largely over (e.g. we didn't see any of the early migrants like Yellow-rumped, nor any Nashvilles, Black-throated Greens, etc.) Sunday it was clear but windy, and even harder to find birds. There were very few passage migrants left (a few Tennessees, a Canada, a Blackpoll). Steve Greenfield
[mou] Parasitic Jaegers, RT Loons, etc. at Park Point
This morning there were three Parasitic Jaegers on Lake Superior out from the Sky Harbor Airport on Park Point. All were adult light morphs; one was in breeding plumage and the other two were in non- breeding plumage. All three had sharply pointed central retrices, visible as they harassed Ring-billed Gulls. I ran into Sparky Stensaas and he had nine Red-throated Loons on the lake past the airport. At least five of these were visible from the boardwalk near the airport. I saw an additional three on Wisconsin Point out from the first pullout. The Red-bellied Woodpecker is still present at the bus turnaround before the recreational area. I heard another Red-bellied along Stony Point Drive while I was watching a Northern Mockingbird on the lawn of the westernmost house. A lone Short-billed Dowitcher was on the rocks near Knife Island in Lake County Jim Lind Two Harbors
[mou] Cass County Big Day
If the number of limbs, branches, and tree tops that needed to be cleared from the Deep Portage trails on Monday morning were any indication, Sunday was a tad breezy. Rain and wind gusts up to 40 mph accompanied us on our Cass County big day effort, although the sun came out in the evening. We tallied 118 species in total, and finished the day with a Sandhill Crane on Pine Mountain Lake. Thanks to Larry Olsen, Dale Yerger, Molly Malecek, and Evan Barbour for participating. Special thanks to Arnie Rieger of Sunset Bay Resort on Baby Lake for letting us come overyour oak tree provided most of our warbler species. Thanks also to everyone that participated in the bird walk and banding demonstration at Deep Portage on Saturday. It was a good morning today on Bass Pond, with many Blackpoll, Blackburnian, and Tennessee Warblers. Cheers, Ben Wieland __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com
[mou] Prothonotary Warbler, Pike Island
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --050206040505080506010102 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit I saw a Prothonotary Warbler on Pike Island in Fort Snelling State Park this morning around 9:30 a.m. It was about a third of the way along the path that runs along the Mendota Bridge side of the island (between the bridge to Pike Island and the first turnoff leading back to that bridge) on a tree between the path and the water. The habitat between the island and the Mendota bridge is quite waterlogged, ideal for this species. I first heard it call, looked for it and found it; I was able to observe it fairly close up through binoculars for several minutes as it moved from branch to branch before it flew into the woods. It was a male; I noted the bright yellow head and breast (no streaks), dark eye and black bill, white vent and undertail coverts, grey wings. The call was a loud, four note wrink-wrink-wrink-wrink. Arjun Guneratne gunera...@macalester.edu --050206040505080506010102 Content-Type: text/x-vcard; charset=utf-8; name=guneratne.vcf Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Content-Disposition: attachment; filename=guneratne.vcf begin:vcard fn:Arjun Guneratne n:Guneratne;Arjun email;internet:gunera...@macalester.edu tel;work:651-696-6362 tel;fax:651-696-6324 tel;home:651-698-1279 x-mozilla-html:TRUE version:2.1 end:vcard --050206040505080506010102--
