[mou] Douglas Cnty Occasional Big Day

[JELLISBIRD@aol.com]

Hello All-


Announcing the results of the 3rd Annual Douglas Country Big Day by the

Ellis family.  Participating were dad John, and sons/brothers Jesse (me,

writing) and Alex.  Due to time contraints, we made the unusual decision

to do our Big Day from 6pm August 2nd to 6pm August 3rd, which made for

much different general bird-finding tactics.


Total for the day was 118 species, a little below our goal of 120. 

Weather was great (clear, still, 83 degrees) the evening of the 2nd, but

the third dawned a little chilly, and never topped 66 degrees, and a

breeze picked up toward the end of the count period.


Highlights in taxonomic order:

Cattle Egret, seen on the Grant Co. line near Pelican Lake, as a single

flyover

SNOW GOOSE - we found a Blue Goose at the Osakis sewage ponds.  This bird

was seen both the evening of the 2nd and late in the day on the 3rd.

Osprey - a pair was circling over Swim Lake in the early minutes of our count

11 species of shorebirds, including

RUDDY TURNSTONE at Osakis Sewage Ponds and

American Woodcock doing a partial display twitter in NE Douglas Co.

All expected Woodpeckers save Red-bellied

Black-and-white Warbler

All 8 expected breeding sparrows, including Grasshopper Sparrow


Weak spots in our list included a few big duck misses, such as Gadwall,

Ruddy Duck, and Ringneck, disappointingly few migrant warblers, a general

scarcity of raptors besides Kestrel and Red-tail (we missed Broad-wing,

Cooper's, Swainson's and Bald Eagle, and only had singles of Red-shoulder

and Sharpie), and several misses and near misses on normally common

breeders, such as Tanager and Virginia Rail.  The last is one of the

challenges of a late summer big day, I guess.  Also, we had very few

locations with shorebirds present.  However, it was exciting to explore

our favorite county, try a new and unusual Big Day format, and find some

good birds for August in the county.


If anyone has questions, either reply to this address to my father, John,

or email me at jme29@cornell.edu.


Good birding,
Jesse Ellis