[mou] Eagle watching last weekend
Rob Daves
rob_daves@yahoo.com
Wed, 22 Mar 2006 09:03:21 -0800 (PST)
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I'd hesitated about posting this, but the recent post about a Northern Harrier convinced me that at least one other birder might be interested.
My wife and I drove down Saturday afternoon to Red Wing from Minneapolis. We saw the gyrfalcon on the utility pole along side U.S. 61 in Dakota County. We watched it fly leisurely across the field toward the east and perch on the large irrigation machine. Just south of the gryfalcon's utility poll we saw an American Kestrel sitting on a fence on the west side of the highway. But a bigger thrill than the kestrel was the sighting of a Northern Harrier coursing northbound over a field.
Sunday we spent hopping from site to site: Colvill Park in Red Wing; several pullouts beside Lake Pepin, and the eagle platform in Wabasha. We saw nearly 2 dozen eagles at Colvill Park in Red Wing, along with scores of ring-billed gulls and a few herring gulls, including what was described as a first-year herring gull. It was pretty cool to see the gulls catch the smaller shad, and to see the eagles pull out the larger ones. Some of the volunteers had scopes trained on the nest across from the park.
Farther downstream at one of the pullouts on Lake Pepin, we counted more than 300 scaups.
At Wabasha, there were lots of volunteers with scopes and binoculars, some of which were trained on an occupied next across the river. We headed for home via the Wisconsin side of the river and spotted another occupied nest. Eagle total for the day? 200+
What a great weekend!
Rob Daves, Minneapolis
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<DIV>I'd hesitated about posting this, but the recent post about a Northern Harrier convinced me that at least one other birder might be interested.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>My wife and I drove down Saturday afternoon to Red Wing from Minneapolis. We saw the gyrfalcon on the utility pole along side U.S. 61 in Dakota County. We watched it fly leisurely across the field toward the east and perch on the large irrigation machine. Just south of the gryfalcon's utility poll we saw an American Kestrel sitting on a fence on the west side of the highway. But a bigger thrill than the kestrel was the sighting of a Northern Harrier coursing northbound over a field. </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Sunday we spent hopping from site to site: Colvill Park in Red Wing; several pullouts beside Lake Pepin, and the eagle platform in Wabasha. We saw nearly 2 dozen eagles at Colvill Park in Red Wing, along with scores of ring-billed gulls a
nd a
few herring gulls, including what was described as a first-year herring gull. It was pretty cool to see the gulls catch the smaller shad, and to see the eagles pull out the larger ones. Some of the volunteers had scopes trained on the nest across from the park.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Farther downstream at one of the pullouts on Lake Pepin, we counted more than 300 scaups.</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>At Wabasha, there were lots of volunteers with scopes and binoculars, some of which were trained on an occupied next across the river. We headed for home via the Wisconsin side of the river and spotted another occupied nest. Eagle total for the day? 200+</DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>What a great weekend! </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV>Rob Daves, Minneapolis </DIV> <DIV> </DIV> <DIV> </DIV><p>
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