[mou] western and northern minnesota

[STEVE PULLES]

As I mentioned in my previous e-mail, my parents and I took a 4-week birding vacation in western and northern Minnesota.  We swung down through Sleepy Eye to Blue Mounds, then drove up (following the Pine to Prairie Birding Trail for a good ways) as far north as Lake of the Woods before looping south through Itasca State Park and Aitkin County.  Listed below are some of our better finds...

PIPING PLOVER - 6/13 Sleepy Eye Sewage Ponds
WHITE-RUMPED SANDPIPER - Sleepy Eye Sewage Ponds
UPLAND SANDPIPER - fields and prairies in Yellow Medicine, Clay, and Polk counties
WILLOW FLYCATCHER - Rock County
RED-HEADED WOODPECKER - Blue Mounds SP
*WHITE-EYED VIREO* - 6/14 Pipestone National Monument
WILSON'S PHALAROPE - in a wet farmfield in Ottertail County
MARBLED GODWIT - Rothsay WMA
GREATER PRAIRIE-CHICKEN - Rothsay WMA
LOGGERHEAD SHRIKE - Felton Prairie
CHESTNUT-COLLARED LONGSPUR - Felton Prairie
BLACK-BILLED MAGPIE - Agassiz NWR
RED-NECKED GREBE - on nest in Agassiz NWR
OLIVE-SIDED FLYCATCHER - Beltrami State Forest
BLACK-BACKED WOODPECKER - Itasca SP

Also had 15 warblers, mostly at Itasca SP and Hayes Lake SP
Also found it interesting that I saw a dark-eyed junco (Beltrami SF) and a brown creeper (Itasca SP) during the summer

Good birding everyone!
   Keith Pulles, Wright County