[mou] Hennepin County (4/3)

[alyssa]

Well, I got a little bored of school today, so I decided to skip (kidding.) I went to 4 sites in Hennepin County. Highlights from each site:

General Mills Nature Area (Golden Valley)=
-Eastern Meadowlark (1, made its musical chatter, then, ironically, flew west)
-Tundra Swans (flock of 50+ headed west, with a cormorant along with them)
-R-B Nuthatch (1, male heard singing)
*R-S Hawk adult seen last week (fly-by)

General Mills Nature Preserve (Golden Valley)=
-Great Egret (1)
-Hermit Thrush (pair)
-R-T Hawks (nesting pair)

Purgatory Creek (Eden Prairie)=
-14 waterfowl species 
-1 Mallard drake that had a white bib and medium-brown back and belly
-Sandhill Cranes (pair flyby, heading north)
-What was perhaps Don Darnell's flock of Tundra Swans
-Possible Cackling Goose near the bridge. I didn't have any mallards to compare it with size-wise, so I left it as "possible". It would have been a "Richardson's".
-Hermit Thrush (1)

Wood Lake Nature Center (Richfield)=
-Fox Sparrows (at least 7)

Song Sparrows and Great Blue Herons have exploded in numbers this week, and they were seemingly everywhere today. New for today were E. Phoebes and Bluebirds, G-C Kinglets, Tree Swallows and D-C Cormorants. No Rusty Blackbirds, Winter Wrens, or new sparrows, alas. It was a lovely day, with a mix of snow, slush, water, and ice on the trails. Good birding~

Alyssa DeRubeis
Golden Valley
tiger150 at comcast.net 
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