62!

On Friday I was undecided.  Did I really want to get up early on Saturday and go on a bird hike?  Really?  Wouldn't I prefer to sleep in?  But then I saw on facebook that a white faced ibis had been spotted at Sherburne National Wildlife Refuge.  All of a sudden I wanted to go birding real bad.  But I needed to preregister.  At 3:30 pm on Friday afternoon I try to preregister.  Lucky me, they had room for me.  So I set the alarm for 5:45 which is 15 LONG minutes before I usually have to get up.  I had my clothes laid out so I got there on time.  Our leader's name was Robin-good name for a bird hike leader. And she was excellent.  She was casual and informative.  She didn't talk too much and she didn't talk too little.  She told us about habits and habitat.  Ahead on the path was a forest on the left and a prairie on the right.  She explained that we would see white throated sparrows on one side and white crowned sparrows on the other side.  I got there early.  One of the organizers recognized me from the Christmas bird count.  He asked if I would tally the species and numbers on a sheet of paper.  Not quite awake yet I agreed.  As I squinted at the sheet and tried to wake up completely, I saw a list of hundreds of birds in size 8 font.  I looked again.  I saw magnificent frigate bird.  "What kind of list is this?" I asked the organizer, "There's a magnificent frigate bird on this list."  I know magnificent frigate birds.  Magnificent frigate birds circled the ports on the Galapagos Islands.  Evidently this is a list of ALL the birds ever seen in Minnesota which is a very long list of birds.  A couple cranes flew over.  I looked at the list for five minutes and could not find sand hill cranes.  I asked Robin to find sand hill cranes on the list.  She found them after about 3 minutes.  This was not a good way to start the bird list.  If you're busy looking at the list all the time you don't get to enjoy the birds as much.  But I agreed to do it so I toughed it out.  All in all, we saw 62 species: cranes, Canadian geese, great blue herons, green herons, northern harrier, sora, red headed woodpecker, red bellied woodpecker, yellow bellied sapsucker (the name sounds like an insult), northern flicker, pileated woodpecker, least fly catcher, great crested fly catcher, yellow throated vireo, blue headed vireo, blue jay, crow, tree swallow, barn swallow, black capped chickadee, sedge wren, ruby crowned kinglet, veery, Swainson's thrush, wood thrush, robin, gray catbird, brown thrashers, ovenbird, northern water thrush, black and white warbler, Nashville warbler, common yellow throat, American redstart, Northern Parula, Magnolia warbler, yellow warblers, palm warblers, yellow rumped warbler, black throated green warbler, Wilson's warbler, eastern towhee, chipping sparrow, field sparrow, lark sparrow, fox sparrow, song sparrow, Lincoln sparrow, swamp sparrow, Harris' sparrow, white throated sparrow, white crowned sparrow, rose breasted grossbeak, red winged blackbirds, brown headed cowbird, Baltimore oriole, and goldfinch.  All of these birds were found on the Mahnomen Trail.  While walking I heard chorus frogs, spring peepers, pickerel frogs and leopard frogs.  After this we were heading over to see the white faced ibis.  We got in our cars and drove west and north to a part of the refuge I had never seen before.  I saw some people standing next to a wetland with binoculars up.  We drove a good half mile past them to park.  I was getting anxious. Here it was 10:15.  Our bird hike was supposed to go until 10.  I had plans to go to the gym this morning.  How was this going to work?  Furgetaboutit!!!  By the time I finished walking to see the ibis, I would have the equivalent workout of going to the gym.  I relaxed a little bit.  We walked up and down the road looking for the white faced ibis.  They were here this morning.  We asked some bystanders about it.  One woman with a large camera answered, "Ask him!"  The man had not seen it but heard it was behind an island out there and heading north.  One of the people in our group walked to the farthest group of birders to ask them.  He came back and said we were misled.  The birds were more to the right.  What was this?  Were we deliberately misled?  Was this a situation like my Uncle Leo who when asked where he caught a fish always lied and said East Battle Lake?  Normally birders do not mislead you.  They're usually happy to share the experience of seeing a bird.  One person in our group said photographers are different than birders.  They're after a shot and don't want others to get in the way of their shot.  While I was mulling that over in my mind someone shouted, "Flying!"  OMG!  Four white faced ibis' flew across the pond.  How strange these birds are!  About a foot tall with long legs and a very long, downward angled bill, they look like something that should not be here in Minnesota.  We caught sight of a bald eagles, turkey vultures, pied billed grebes and ring necked ducks as well.  Very satisfied I turned in my species list to Robin and walked back to my car.  I was so glad I got up early today.

This is the spot where we saw the ibis'.  Looks like an intersection but it's where 57th curves into 185th.