Birding at SNWR

Today my bird class went to the Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge. I saw three birds I had never seen before. Lets see, in approximate order, we saw robins (hundreds), red winged blackbirds, red throated mergansers, grackles, bald eagles, red tailed hawks, Canadian geese, ring-necked ducks, blue wing teal, mallards, Eastern Towhee (a first for me), Meadowlarks, sandhill cranes, great blue heron, coot, phoebe, Trumpeter swans, snipe (pictured and also a first for me), bluebirds, blue jays, hooded mergansers, pheasant, killdeer, cormorants, and yellow legs (another first for me). We saw a pasque flower in bloom on a field that had been recently burned. The bests sightings? One was seeing a bluebird pair go in and out of a small hole in the tree. The female sat outside on a branch while the male went in and out of the hole cleaning the nest. Another best sighting was the snipe circling above our heads singing an eery "Lu lu lu lu lu lu lu lu." I guess that was the bird equivalent of a wolf whistle. The snipe sang and circled the entire time we were there which had to be at least ten minutes. The last best sighting was the yellow legs. We saw one, then two and finally three poking their long bills into the mud. I think yellow legs is an odd name for a bird. Seems like the name is missing a third part. There's red winged blackbirds, blue wing teal, red headed woodpecker and yellow rumped warbler. Those all have three names unlike yellow legs. On the other hand, when you see them through the binoculars, you think, "Look at those yellow legs!" We had a great day birding.