This is sort of a tongue-in-cheek subject line as nary a birder showed up for today's Itasca County field trip! I expected a few individuals, but I sat there in the parking lot of the Civic Center and nobody showed! (Must have been the cold--preregistration will be required for next year's trips.) So, I did what any self-respecting birder would do and went out by myself. Even though we would have tried them as a group, I skipped the Northern Shrike and Three-toed Woodpecker spots from yesterday since I had already seen those birds. Here's how I did:
Black-billed Magpie (1) - Priem Rd Hoary Redpoll (1) - Priem Rd, just submitted documentation Evening Grosbeak (several) - feeders in Effie Common Grackle (1) - same feeder setup as the EGs...my second Itasca winter sighting ever of this species Gray Jay (2) - Alder Rd at the suet feeders Brown Creeper (1) - Alder Rd hanging near the feeders (but not using them) Barred Owl (1) - roosting right above the Alder Rd feeders! White-winged Crossbill (many) - Alder Rd and a lone female actually eating at the same feeder as the Evening Grosbeaks with Pine Siskins and Common Redpolls also hanging on it! Pine Grosbeaks, Pine Siskins, and Common Redpolls in good numbers. All finch species mentioned were present at the feeders in Effie. Lots of redpolls in Bigfork. Oddly, after a banner Boreal Chickadee day yesterday, I missed this species despite nearly an hour of watching the Alder Rd feeders. Finally, a lone House Sparrow at the awesome Effie feeders (don't worry, I have met and spoken with the homeowner) was so much of a surprise (I've never seen one in Effie) I had to check it twice to make sure I didn't have a county-first Eurasian Tree Sparrow. The feeders AT the Effie Cafe were also pretty busy with finches. Shawn Conrad http://users.2z.net/itasca_chippewa_birding/ _________________________________________________________________ Windows Live™ Contacts: Organize your contact list. http://windowslive.com/connect/post/marcusatmicrosoft.spaces.live.com-Blog-cns!503D1D86EBB2B53C!2285.entry?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_UGC_Contacts_032009 ---- Join or Leave mou-net:http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives:http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
