[mou] Additional Drawdowns

[Dennis/Barbara Martin]

We have heard about a couple of other drawdowns that are going to be going
on.  Keep the information coming for all to share.

Waseca County-Goose Lake, about a mile and a half east of Waseca on Highway
14, best access from the county park on the east side of the lake or the
public access on the north side from Highway 14, best viewing may depend on
time of day visiting as to avoid looking into the sun and depth of the water
in the respective areas, not a huge lake but good sized so plenty of
shorebirds are possible, we understand that this lake will be in drawdown
this summer, which depending on timing may include late spring, early summer
or late summer early fall migrants, also may depend on how fast an outflow
pipe may be repaired, we remember this lake as being a pretty decent
waterfowl lake so water depth may be pretty shallow which should allow for a
fair amount of mud during all the drawdown times, the DNR website lists no
size or depth information which usually means that this is a shallow duck
lake that no depth maps are needed for

Blue Earth County- Rice Lake, south of St Clair on County Road 28, probably
only sure access is from the WMA on the southwest corner of the lake,
although the DNR web site lists a public access of unknown ownership on the
northeast corner of the lake through a farm (we suspect only locals will be
able to find this so birders probably best stick to walking through the
WMA),  dam is failing so water was drawn down this past winter, 438 acre
lake with an average depth of 4 feet so shorebirding should be great this
spring with a lot of mud showing, not sure how long it will take to repair
the dam but you can bet that the earliest this lake will have a chance to
start filling up will be the fall rains and that means a whole season of
shorebirding

Any shorebirders visiting be sure to keep all of us up-to-date on what is
being seen on these two very interesting drawdowns.

Dennis and Barbara Martin
dbmartin@skypoint.com