[mou] Wednesday in Wilkin

[Dan & Sandy Thimgan]

Spent about 4 hours birding Wilkin county today and it was a delight.
Especially awesome was the plethora of Rough Legged Hawks, as noted in
Patrick Beauzay's and John Ellis' posts earlier.

We saw:
45+ Rough Legged Hawks:  We saw all manner of phases/morphs, a great way to
study them.  We were seeing one per minute in the first half hour, so we
were getting quite an education on them.  Some beautiful, long looks at a
great raptor.

Snow Buntings:  At the corner of 290th Ave and 170th St. we saw a flock of
snow buntings in excess of 300, we estimate, landing and circling in the
field at that corner.  There were some mixed birds in the flock as well, bu=
t
most of the flock were buntings.

Golden Eagle, adult:  We were lucky to see this just as we were deciding to
head home, near Foxhome -- flew low to the ground and landed in a tree, we
were able to drive fairly close to the landing tree.  Magnificent bird!

Kestrel: 3
Meadowlarks: 3, we guess Western, but did not hear them call
Bald Eagle: 1 adult
Harriers: 5
Red Tailed Hawks: 4
Ring Necked Pheasant: 1
Horned larks, everywhere

White Tailed Deer: 34, the biggest group was 15, fun to see them loping
across those big open fields!

All in all a lovely day on the prairie.

Sandy and Dan Thimgan
Otter Tail County
Battle Lake MN
--=20
Thimgans   =20
=B3The ornament of a house is the friends who frequent it.=B2
Ralph Waldo Emerson