I was at the Brownsville platform on Saturday p.m. and noted 203 Bald
Eagles in one scan of the river and associated flats and I'm sure I
undercounted. There were also 20,000+ coot, 2 black ducks, 800 swans
(several thousand at the old platform a mile to the south), and tens of
thousands of duck
Beginning tomorrow, the 75th annual Federal Duck Stamp art contest will
take place at the Bloomington Art center. The art is on display from 9
a.m. to 10 p.m. on Friday and 9 a.m to 2 p.m on Saturday. The opening
ceremony will begin at 10 a.m. Friday with preliminary judging to begin at
10.30; f
This update comes from Tom Stehn, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service biologist
at Aransas NWR, Texas.
The Aransas-Wood Buffalo whooping crane flock reached a record population
of 266 at Aransas in December, 2007. No mortality was documented during
the 2007-08 winter. During the spring 2008 migration
Minnesota birders might be interested in the satellite tracking project
which banded 5 Marbled Godwits on a southern James Bay Ontario island and
their current status. Surmising that the estimated total of about 2000
birds nesting in James Bay matched the estimated 2000 birds wintering on
the SE
Does anyone have directions to the shorebird site described by Craig
Mandell on the Louisville Swamp unit of Minnesota Valley NWR. I wandred
around there yesterday for a couple of hours and wasn't able to find what
is apparently a good location at this moment. Thanks! Never birded that
area befo
Recently I became aware that yet another Kirtland's Warbler has been
discovered in Wisconsin, this time within 30 miles of the MN border. Is
anyone aware of large tracts of young jackpine on the MN side of the border
in Carlton, Pine (Mark?), Kenabec (Reverend Al?), Chisago, St. Louis (Jan
et al.
I ran the Glenwood BBS route on 13 June 2008, one of my favorite routes
because it actually has topography and beautiful views of Lake Minnewaska
and a better than average diversity of birds. Unfortunately the day was
windy and distant calls hard to pick up and comparing such days to calm
days of
Thought folks would be interested in the various whooping crane
populations. This comes from the Operation Migration website. Bob
Russell, USFWS
Date: July 14 2008 - Entry 1
On 14 June 2008 I ran the Chokio BBS route which starts on the west side of
Fish Lake, Stevens County and heads west on gravel roads into Traverse
County, ending 6 miles NNE of Barry. The landscape is almost entirely flat
with a high water table but that doesn't stop the farmers from draining,
di
Whooping Cranes from the introduced Wisconsin population have been reported
from several parts of the Midwest recently including North Dakota and
western Minnesota. There is a known group of 4 whoopers seen recently in
SW MN and at least 5-10 other birds are possible in MN, N WI, or even Iowa
or
I ran the Gluek BBS route on 18 June 2008 and recorded 726 individuals of
56 species. This count starts northwest of Clara City, Chippewa County and
runs north through the town of Murdoch to a point just north of Hollerberg
Lake in Swift County. This marked the 27th year this count has been run
I ran the Appleton BBS route on a near-perfect weather day on 6/25/08 with
light winds. This route starts about 12 miles south of Benson, runs due
west with one jog to a point a couple of miles east of Appleton, then due
north to an ending on the Pomme de Terre River bridge north of U.S. 12.
It'
Sorry. The location of the second kingbird was at Cokato, Wright County
along U.S. 12 in the vicinity of the first wetland west of town. Shouldn't
write these on 4 hours of sleep. Bob Russell, USFWS
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URL:
http://moumn.org
Ran into Western Kingbirds twice this week: downtown Paynesville, Stearns
County on Tuesday perched on aerials on drug store twice between 11 and
noon and also hanging out to the south in a large tree just south of Hwy 23
and one along U.S. Hwy 12 at the wetland on the immediate west end of town.
There was a single Cattle Egret along MN 28 on the north side of the
highway about 1 mile east of US 59 and west of the radio tower. Look for
some red-striped horse barns and a couple of horses and the egret may be
there. First seen at 1 p.m. today. Many Eared Grebes and Black Terns on
Crystal
I was quite amazed to see an estimated 124+ White Pelicans migrating
northnortheastward at rather low altitude up I-35 just north of Moose
Lake, Carleton County Sunday evening. In speculating on where these late
migrants might be headed if they followed their observed bearings, I found
that the
My personal belief and whispered talk around my agency is that this
artificially-induced buildup of Trumpeter Swans at Monticello is a disaster
waiting to happen. Such huge buildups of swans are way beyond the natural
concentrations of swans in most areas of its natural range. The potential
for
This was forwarded around the office today. Another payback from exotic
organisms. Bob Russell, USFWS
>
> Thousands of bluebills dead since Thursday
> Sam Cook
> Duluth News Tribune - 11/06/2007
> Dan Markham and Noel Hill of Duluth were setting up to hunt ducks on Lake
> Winnibigoshish near De
A new website that may be of interest to state DNRs, law enforecement, and
raptor folks has been just been announced. THE FEATHER ATLAS OF NORTH
AMERICAN BIRDS is a new web-based resource from the Forensics Lab for the
identification of wing and tail feathers. These feathers are often
encounter
Took a leisurely trip around the Superior Forest, Duluth, and up to Pigeon
River over the weekend. Notables included:
jaeger sp. Park Point Bathhouse--2 seen coming from the north on afternoon
of the 19th with one heading towards Superior entry and one towards Lift
Bridge. Never approached cl
Midwestern Sandhill Cranes gather in large, premigratory flocks at selected
spots throughout the Upper Midwest in the mid-August to November period.
The U.S. Fish and Willdife Service is mapping these staging areas to
present to the wind power industry as areas to (hopefully) avoid when
siting th
Any waterfowl commonly kept in captivity like Eurasian Widgeon, Smew,
Tufted Duck, and Bar-headed Goose. I've seen several wintering Tufted
Ducks on Lake Michigan with scaup which would seem to point at wild origin
but with waterfowl you just never know for sure. Bob Russell
-- next
Here's a brief summary of the 48th Supplement to the American
Ornithologist's Union Check-List of North American Birds recently
published. Most do not concern Minnesota species and some of those minor
changes I've left out of this note. Comments mine unless in quotes and
then they're likely fro
Here's an update from Tom Stehn (USFWS) and Brian Johns (Canadian Wildlife
Services) on the Alberta whooping crane population. At least one pair of
the Wisconsin whoopers has not been located recently and may be summering
outside the core area in C Wisconsin. Keep your eyes open as birds in
prev
New population estimates for North American shorebirds have been published.
The article is "Population estimates of North American shorebirds, 2006.
Wader Study Group Bull. 111: 67-85 by Morrison, R.I.G., McCaffrey,B.J.,
Gill, R.E., Skagen, S.K., Jones, S.L., Page, G.W., Gratto-Trevor, C.L., &
An
Since a few Red Knots will be winging their way southward in the next few
weeks through the western Great Lakes I thought this note from Jean Iron of
the Ontario Field Ornithologists was pertinent. Keep your eyes out for
flagged birds for this declining species and report all western Great Lakes
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The Rydell/Glacial Ridge NWR is once again seeking bird enthusiasts to =
help
with a "Shorebird Blitz" (survey of marbled godwits, upland sandpipers,=
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During the first part of this week the large areas of remaining open wa=
ter
on James and Hudson Bays in Canada froze up (still a couple of small h
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The "first family" of whooping cranes of the eastern experimental
population (2 adults and one chick) departed Necedah NWR in central
Wisconsin on
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In response to Beau's inquiry on plover, it isn't unusual to find this
species as late as early November some year and rarely to mid-November =
but
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There appears to be a definite eastern component to this fall's migrati=
on
due in part to the persistent NE/E winds we have had but also some stro
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After an absence of a couple of decades I decided to walk out to Fronte=
nac
Point, perhaps now one of the most overlooked sites in the state and m
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A satellite reading showed that one of the Wisconsin (introduced birds)=
cranes briefly visited Mille Lacs County a couple of weeks ago but retu=
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The time of the year is fast approaching when large flocks of marbled
godwits appear for a few hours or a day in northern MN and the Lake
Superior
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Here's an update on the whooping crane that many saw in Todd County ear=
lier
in the month. Maybe the birds will join up today. No known whoopers
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For those interested in the saga of the Todd County whooper, good news
regarding its missing mate:
12 April: At 1540 today the radiosignal of no.
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I've received 4 reports of Whooping Cranes in the past day so something=
may
be up out there. Two reports are from the Tamarack NWR/Detroit Lakes
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For those of you recently reporting red-billed scaups here's the contact
information:
Subject: Re: question about bill tag on Lesser Scaup
From: Shane Patterson
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2006 15:15:1
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Alice Hanley, manager of Big Stone NWR, informed me that there will be =
a
yearlong drawdown of Pools A & B this year in order to facilitate
constr
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A report on Canada Warbler, a bird of conservation concern for the U.S.=
Fish and Wildlife Service, is available online from the Vermont Institu=
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Check out the article in the recent Ontario Field Ornithologists'
Newsletter for a status assessment of Cackling Goose records including the
Upper Midwest, quite pertinent to the recent MORC d
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Despite Stearns County having one of the top 10 county lists in the sta=
te
and a history of bird observations that goes back to Zebulon Pike and T
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The 3 adult Whooping Cranes that spent the late summer near the Rum Riv=
er
in southeastern Morrison County were last recorded on 7 October 2005.
A
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There are now 42 wild birds in the eastern experimental population of
whooping cranes centered around Necedah NWR in central Wisconsin. Twen=
ty
h
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Kim Eckert just called in to say he saw a possible frigatebird out of t=
he
corner of his eye while cruising down I-35 at milepost 62 near Faribaul
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A pair of Yellow-crowned Night Herons were flying low and slow over Rob=
erts
Street in West St. Paul headed west late yesterday evening coming fro
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Cornell University has an interesting page on Evening Grosbeak numbers =
with
several possible theories for their decline. A range retraction afte
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Jim Mattsson asked me to post.
Great Gray Owl. 11:15am. Dakota Co. , Eagan.
Bird in tree immediately south of U.S. Postal Office parking lot. Loc
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Birded the northern half of Lake Pepin above and below Lake City yester=
day.
Two groups of 200+ Common Mergansers north of Lake City on Wisconsin
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I had an adult Yellow-crowned Night Heron at 0810 this morning (Friday) in
West St. Paul on the west side of Lily Lake. The bird was sitting on a low
tree branch which extended out over the lake in the NE portion of the
property owned by the Oakdale Community Church.
Directions: take the Butl
This comes from the Ontario bird net with thanks to Ron Pittaway and Jean
Irons:
Very few southbound juvenile shorebirds from the arctic are currently
migrating through southern Ontario indicating a failed nesting season for
many northern species. For example, at Townsend Sewage Lagoons near Lak
As one of Minnesota and the Midwest's rarest and least known species, I
thought an article published back in 1999 in the Journal of Field
Ornithology (Vol 70, no. 4, pp. 465-480) (authors Larry Spear, Scott
Terrill, Colleen Lenihan, and Penelope Delevoryas) might have some
relevance to Midwest b
This BBS runs northward from a point 4 miles NW of Clara City ending up
about 12 miles directly east of Benson. It runs through very intensive
agriculture (corn-soybean desert to many biologists) with one nice wetland
at the north end of Hollerberg Lake. Shelterbelts are sparsely distributed
w
At least some northern birds are having a productive year. This came in
from Tom Stehn, national whooping crane coordinator at Aransas NWR, TX.
Here's another reason to celebrate on the 4th of July!
Whooping crane production surveys carried out June 16-21 by Regional
Pilot/Biologist Jim Bred
I ran the Glenwood Breeding Bird Survey on 17 June, a beautiful and diverse
route that runs from near Grove Lake Waterfowl Production Area west a few
miles south of Lake Minnewaska, past the entrance to Glacial Lake State
Park, and ending up SW of Starbuck near Lake Emily. I found 84 species an
I had one, possibly 2, clicking Yellow Rails at 2025 hours last evening on
the west side of the big sedge marsh along Route 70 (south side of highway)
approximately (DeLorme pp.49, B6--east of transmission line on map) 2-3
miles west of the St. Croix River west of Grantsburg, WI. I believe the
Thought you all might be interested in an update on the introduced flock of
Whooping Cranes provided by Richard Urbanek, USFWS crane biologist and
Laura Fondow, crane researcher and International Crane Foundation
technician.
36 cranes went south last fall. 25 including seven yearlings returned
Anyone that has historical (before today) counts of shorebirds, waterfowl
including grebes, pelicans, and ducks, gulls, Black Terns, and other
waterbirds and would like to contribute to the nomination of Salt Lake as
an Important Bird Area for either the South Dakota or Minnesota portions of
the la
Just a couple of points about Northern Bobwhites that haven't been brought
out in recent discussions. Everyone should read Tony Hertzel's fine,
well-researched article in The Loon recently on the subject. Taking a
regional perspective, it is interesting to note that the Wisconsin Breeding
Bird At
Dear volunteer birders:
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Region 3, has several American Woodcock
survey routes open for volunteers. The routes only require about 1-2 hours
after sunset during May once a year and are only 4 miles long with a
listening stop every .4 miles. Knowledge of woodcock
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