[mou] birding south of the cities

[Steve Weston]

The hummingbirds have really been sucking the feeders dry this week, despite 
the abundance of jewelweed around the house.  After two years of trying to 
get cardinal flowers planted in the back yard, one has volunteered in the 
front yard.  I am not sure how it got there.

Yesterday morning I watched a chickadee fold his head under his wing and go 
to sleep, oblivious to me reading just 15  feet away.  I was surprised that 
it did this sitting completely exposed on the edge of my birdbath.

Today (Sunday) I stopped by the sod farms in Empire township.  there were no 
shorebirds on the Jirik farm fields, but the Braun fields west of there by 
the red house had a couple of pools with hundreds of shorebirds.  Most flew 
further back out of view, but I was still able to count nine species 
including Black-bellied Plover, Stilt, Pectoral, Bairds, Least, and 
Semi-palmated Sandpiper, and a Dowitcher.  A walk out to Sand Point turned 
up ten species of warbler, including a Cerulean.

Yesterday I found a beautiful hawk moth in the yard with a wingspan of about 
three inches: a White-lined Sphinx moth (Hyles lineata) (formerly called a 
Striped Mourning Sphinx moth (Celerio lineata).

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