[mou] Aitkin County - 3/19/05 - thanks and expenses

[Kimerly J Wilcox]

I just wanted to say thanks to everyone who shared good information on
where to find the owls in Aitkin County!

My husband and I made the pilgrimage yesterday from Otsego, and came home
giddy!  We saw a total of 16 Great Gray Owls and and three Northern Hawk
Owls.  (There was also the Great Horned Owl that had my heart thumping
until I realized it was a decoy!!)

If I have time I'll try to reconstruct our route and send it.  I do want to
mention that our second NHO was "visited" by a noisy shrike who alternately
perched in the owl's tree and swooped over the owl, finally giving up and
leaving.  The owl seemed fairly uninterested in the shrike's actions. 
Because of distance and inexperience with this bird, I'm unsure if the
shrike was a Northern or Loggerhead.  The mask seemed fairly thin and I've
seen other references to Northerns in these lists; am I fairly safe in
assuming that the bird I saw was a Northern Shrike?

We also saw some ravens in some trees along Hwy 65 s. of 210, and spotted a
pair of rough-legged hawks along 169 on the trip up.

Expenses:

$ 20.00 Lunch plus tip at Hawkeye's Coffee House in Aitkin (good soup and
sanwiches)

$ 31.00 gas

$  2.00 snacks

$110.57 bottle of wine (no, we didn't consume it,just brought it home!),
cheese, salsa, snacks, and various gifts at the coffee house and
Minnestalgia (McGregor; hey, it's never too early to do a little Christmas
shopping!)

$163.57 Total

What a glorious day we had!  Thanks again, everyone.

Best,

Kim Wilcox

Kimerly J. Wilcox, Ph.D.
Senior Instructional Multimedia Consultant
Digital Media Center
University of Minnesota
Room 212 Walter Library
117 Pleasant Street SE
Minneapolis, MN  55455
612-624-3528  fax 612-625-9302
Visit the DMC Web site: http://dmc.umn.edu