Yesterday, Sunday, 6 August, Peder Svingen and I found one juvenile Snowy Plover along the west shore of Big Stone National Wildlife Refuge's East Pool, meaning that at least one of the two previously reported chicks has fledged successfully.
To get to the area in question, take the so-called Banding Site Road - the road that continues east from the eastern terminus of Lac qui Parle CR 40 - until you reach the shore of East Pool. This is a walk of about one-and-a-third miles; you have to walk because the road is blocked by a locked gate. Having followed the Banding Site Road east until it reaches the shore of East Pool, walk left, i.e., northwest, along the shore for roughly two-thirds of a mile; at about two-thirds of a mile the shoreline turns north, and by looking up to the north you'll see the area in which the juvenile Snowy was observed. We saw the Snowy during our weekly census of East Pool, and that census tallied nearly 7100 individuals of 21 species. More than half of the individuals were in the same area as the juvenile Snowy. Also, during a shorebird survey in Big Stone Co. on Saturday, 5 August, I found 22 young Plegadis ibises in a pothole in Toqua Twp.; the pothole is located along CR 54 1.6 miles W of CR 61 (which is, I think, the same as saying that the pothole is 0.4 miles E of CR 7). Unfortunately, about 10 minutes after my arrival something "spooked" everything in the pothole, and, whereas the pothole's shorebirds returned, the ibises did not, flying off out of sight toward the SE. Phil Chu Department of Biology St. John's University Collegeville, MN 56321