[mou] Cottonwood Cty: Red-headed Woodpecker

[Jim Ryan]

Hello Birders,
Out for an evening program at Jeffers Petroglyphs with my lovely Katherine 
we saw a Red-headed Woodpecker on Cty 45 just to the east of the MN 
Historical society site. It was on a utility pole in front of a homestead 
with a small woodlot on the S. side of the road. I saw another woodpecker on 
the next pole but it flew away before I could ID it. About the same size as 
the Red-head.

I thought this may be unusual as this is such an overly developed 
agricultural area (very little woodlots,dead trees or unmowed field edges or 
fallow fields along our route)  of Hwy 14 to Cty 5 to the first E-W road S 
of the Brown Cty line.

I also saw several suspicious doves that I could not ID (we were going 
quickly and I was not driving) The tails looked broader and squarer in 
flight than Mourning doves, but there were so many I doubted they could all 
be Non-Mourning doves.

At the Jeffers site we heard Field Sparrows, Western Meadowlarks and 
Dickcissels. Could not see any of them!

We did see a number of first year Ring-necked Pheasants, and at sunset we 
found ourselves surrounded by suddenly cackling birds (again could not see a 
one).

A great program of storytelling about the sky followed, as we watched Mars 
through a telescope and they lay on Buffalo robes watching shooting stars 
and satellites.

Jim in St. Paul




'If all the animals were gone, we would die from loneliness of spirit, for 
whatever happens to the animals soon happens to us. We are part of the 
earth, and it is a part of us. This we know: all things are connected like 
the blood which unites one family. Man did not weave the web of life; he is 
merely a strand in it. Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.'  
Chief Seattle, 1854

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