[mou] Brant, owls(long)

[Benjamin Fritchman]

I dropped everything and headed to Paynesville today. There were a lot of 
Canada Geese on the dikes of the ponds, but no Brant. After a little while, 
several people showed up, and we drove nearby roads, checking fields for the 
Brant. We arrived back at the ponds after awhile. We were hoping that more 
geese would come to the ponds to spend the night, but to our dismay, geese 
actually starting leaving in small flocks. While watching the flocks to make 
sure the Brant didn't get away undetected, I noticed a flock of about 12 
geese to the south, far off. I knew these birds couldn't be from the ponds 
because they were too far away. I was excited to see a flock of different 
birds. I soon realized the farthest bird to the left was small.......very 
small. Bob Dunlap agreed that it looked small, but as the flock got closer, 
the small bird vanished. I thought the small bird had been my imagination, 
but after watching the flock, the smaller bird reappeared. John Hockema then 
saw it and I've never seen anyone get out of a car so fast, it was quite 
humorous. Several people got to see it fly by, and we decided to try and 
relocate it. Going north past the ponds we took the first left, and there in 
the field south of the road was the Brant with other geese, including a Snow 
Goose. We had some amazing, long looks, even though it was far off. It was 
still there when we all left.
On the way home on Hwy. 4, I had a Great-horned Owl about 2 miles south of 
Greenwald, it was in a bush in the field, so I backed up and made sure it 
wasn't a SE Owl. Not a mile later while going around a bend, a Short-eared 
Owl flew up from the road and proceeded to hunt over the field.
All in all, an amazing day,
Ben Fritchman
Long Prairie

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