[mou] Carver County Birding

[John Cyrus]

I spent a couple hours this moring at the Chaska Lake extension of the 
Minnesota Valley National Wildlife Refuge via the Chaska Athletic Park.  If 
you want to get to where most of the birds are, expect to hop over some 
areas of water and trudge through some fairly nasty mud   Birds were highly 
active, though there was still not a huge variety of warblers.

Amer. Redstart(male and female)  very abundant.
Common Yellowthroat(male and female)  also very abundant.
Wilson's Warbler(male and female)
Yellow Warbler(2 male seen another couple heard)
Magnolia Warbler(1 male seen clearly, 3 others assumed moving in the foliage 
with the one)
Tennessee or Nashville warbler heard-I am not expert enough to identify 
songs and when I got home to check the song, I can't be sure which.
Yellow-throated Vireo(1 very vocal seen )
Blue-gray Gnatcatcher(1 seen)
Baltimore Orioles(several)
Rose-breasted Grosbeak
White-throated Sparrow(1)
Clay-colored Sparrow(2)
Lincoln's Sparrow(at least one, likely more but I couldn't get a good look 
at them
Song Sparrow(everywhere)
Rough-winged Swallow(abundant on the south side of Chaska Lake)
Great Blue Heron(3)
Great Egret(3)
Green Heron(1)
Belted Kingfisher (He has returned to his usual territory and you can't miss 
him.  I disturbed him going out and coming back along the trail in the same 
place.)
Osprey pair
3 unknown gulls

A note about access to this area.  There is currently road constuction in 
front of the Chaska Athletic Park.  The road to east is completely torn out 
and impassable.  The park can only be accessed from the west.   Also, I 
tried to visit  the park this past tuesday, but there was a cement truck 
blocking access.   Weekends and nights are probably the best time to go.

Yesterday I checked for the Indigo Bunting that I saw 2 weeks ago along the 
LRT between Highway 212 and Bluff Creek road in Chanhassen, but it was not 
there.    I expect more to return as they are usually fairly common along 
that trail in the summer.     Other birds seen in the past two weeks in 
Carver County of note that I didn't see today were the Palm Warbler and the 
Black and White Warbler.   Black and White Warblers were more abundant than 
they have been in the past few years.  I only saw one Palm Warbler with a 
large flock of Yellow-rumped Warblers and a couple of Black and Whites at 
Carver Park last Sunday.