Around 7:00 p.m. I was birding at the Sleepy Eye W.T.P.’s when I noticed a large flock of birds flying above me (they were a couple of hundred feet up). They reminded me of a large skein of geese that we see in the spring. When I got my scope on them I ID’d them as American Golden Plovers. As far as I could tell they were all uniformly gray underneath on the wings, breast and belly. The vent and coverts were white and the end of the tails were dark. I didn’t see any that had the black “arm pits” that a Black-bellied Plover would have. They slowly circled the ponds and then gradually headed north (for some reason) toward Sleepy Eye. They were spread out enough to let me count them several times. I estimated there to be 360, give or take. Largest number of this species that I’ve ever seen.
Brian Smith Sleepy Eye ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
