[mou] Lake Pepin to Wabsha

[Steve Weston]

Before I even started out, I found a Brown Creeper climbing the oak outside 
our kitchen.  I called my wife over to show her.  She exclaimed, "How can 
you tell what it is?  It's so small!"  Too small for me to call her over. 
She only likes big birds.

Lake Pepin had at least three large rafts of Common Mergansers, 
conservatively estimated at 12,000 birds total.  The only other ducks I 
found were Mallards.  Along the edge of one of the rafts and near shore were 
a few hundred.  Amoung the Mergansers were gulls feeding that took off 
everytime a Bald Eagle flew by.  They were mostly Herrings, but also a 
surprising number of Ring-bills, estimated at about 20%.  I found at least 3 
Thayers Gulls. I counted about 30 Bald Eagles around Lake City, mostly on 
the ice across the lake.  Further south at the end of the Lake where it goes 
through the narrows towards Reeds Landing there were another 70 eagles.  On 
the ice there were two groups of mixed gulls including three gulls larger 
than the Herrings.  Two of those gulls were together.  One was a pale first 
or second year Glaucous Gull.  With it was a darker gull, equally sized, a 
uniformly colored, tawny-fawn bird.  With Sibley in hand, ID'd as juvenile 
Glaucous-winged.  In the other group was a darker bird that appeared to be 
closer in size, but still larger than the Herrings.

Further south near where I heard a Varied Thrush last week, I had a fly over 
of a flock of finches.  Habitat was red pine.  I did not hear them.

My last stop in the deep dusk of evening was to look for the Snowy Owl. 
Just north of 580th on CR14 I found a owl sitting on a power pole, but it 
was a Great Horned Owl.

Steve Weston on Quiggley Lake in Eagan, MN
sweston2@comcast.net