[mou] American Avocets in Hennepin County and more

[alyssa]

The biggest highlight today was when Bob Dunlap and I received a call from Jake (sorry, forgot the last name) who had found 7 American Avocets at Bass Ponds. They were feeding and sleeping on the Long Meadow Lake part, on the far west side. Best viewing was from the bend to the left on the trail.
Here is also what else we saw for today (also Chad Gustafson):

Bass Ponds (which is looking excellent for shorebirds, by the way):
-12 Greater Yellowlegs
-(probable) 2 Pectoral Sandpipers
-2 Wilson's Snipes
-1 American Bittern (flew around us for several minutes)

Lake Byllesby (Dakota County):
-1 female Wilson's Phalarope (also, seen later was a Dunlin and another unidentified peep)
-11 Bonaparte's Gulls (most in breeding plumage)
-1 Franklin's Gull
-16 Horned Grebes
-5 Herring Gulls (all juves)

CR-86 (near the church):
-2-3 Western Meadowlarks singing
-1 female light-morph Rough-legged Hawk

Emery Lane:
-2 Loggerhead Shrikes (<1/4 mile south of 160 St. E.)
-several good-sized flocks of blackbirds, which probably contained Rusty and/or Brewer's

While eating at a Subway near the Pine Bend Refinery, a Merlin whizzed by, heading south. 

Lake Calhoun is about 70% frozen still, so no grebes (only R-B Mergansers and some loons.) While we did not check the other lakes, I did find 3 Horned Grebes at Westwood Hills Nature Center (St. Louis Park.)
Apparently, there was nothing note-worthy at Purgatory Creek.
Other birds seen today included 5 sparrow species, 3 swallow species, 1 O-C Warbler, 1 Winter Wren, and 1 B-C N Heron. Please e-mail for any other questions. Good birding!

Alyssa DeRubeis
Golden Valley
tiger150 at comcast.net



E-mail message checked by Spyware Doctor (5.5.0.212)
Database version: 5.09660
http://www.pctools.com/en/spyware-doctor/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://moumn.org/pipermail/mou-net_moumn.org/attachments/20080419/97fe6c48/attachment-0001.html