There was a lot of hawk and eagle activity on the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge the last couple of days - with no fewer than 4 rough-legged hawks seen yesterday alone. Near the intersection of CR's 9 and 5 there were two birds - one very light in color and one very dark in color. A third bird was near the Blue Hill Trail parking area, and a 4th bird closer to the CR 5 and 3 intersection. Also lots of red-tails and at least four red-shouldered. The pair that overwintered on the south end of Little Elk Lake along CR 1 were there again yesterday. Two more were seen near the end of our maintenance facility driveway on CR 3. In the nearly 3 years that I've been working at Sherburne, I've noticed that there seems to be a corridor for hawk migration along the west side of CR 5, especially between the entrance to the wildlife drive and the CR 3/CR 22 intersection.
But the most exciting sighting was yesterday afternoon about 4:00 p.m., when I was headed home, a northern goshawk flew right over my car and the Santiago general store at the intersection of CRs 11 and 3. Lots of tundra swans were migrating yesterday, with flocks seen over the refuge between noon and 3 pm, and a few flocks landed in croplands on the NW end of the refuge, and also along CR 3 west of Santiago. Betsy Beneke Sherburne NWR ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html
