[mou] Whooping Crane update & Gray Jays

[Benjamin Fritchman]

I know a few people might be interested in the status of the Whooping Crane 
in Mahnomen County. I drove around the area for a couple of hours and had no 
luck refinding the bird. There is a lot of area to search, so it may have 
just eluded me, but they are pretty hard to overlook, thus I believe it has 
moved on. I believe this may very well be a wild bird from the Alberta flock 
for two reasons, one the location is pretty far west for any wandering 
Wisconsin bird, and also, for those who don't know the geography of Mahnomen 
Co. very well, the western portion is primarily flat and open, while the 
eastern portion is hilly and wooded. The change is fairly abrupt, and it 
forms a natural migration route for birds heading south. Any birds coming 
from the west tend to concentrate along here and head south. A few weeks 
ago, Bob Dunlap and I had a good push of raptors, geese, swans, cranes, etc. 
in this area. And today was also the same, with a lot of migrating birds 
following the edge south. Anyway, the area the crane was reported from is 
along this area where the plains meet the hills, indicating to me a bird 
coming from a westerly/northwestly direction. Hopefully sufficient 
documentation is sent in.

Also of interest is that I found 2 more Gray Jays in Norman County. They 
were along Hwy. 200, just east of where CR 41 meets the highway. They were 
at a homestead with fire number 3911. They were on both sides of the 
highway, and spent most of the time in the spruce trees on the south side 
and in the crabapple tree on the south side. It'd be interesting to see the 
extent of this Gray Jay irruption if there was more coverage here in the 
northwest. That being said, please send any sightings in 
western/northwestern Minnesota to either Jeanie Joppru or myself for 
compilation purposes-even if you relocate a bird that has already been 
reported. Thanks.

Ben Fritchman
Fargo, ND
NDSU

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