Sabines Gull in Minnesota

Friday my email inbox had the listserv email of a Sabines Gull at Purgatory Creek in Eden Prairie.  This is a great place to get your Hennepin Co. shorebirds if the conditions are right.  The birder who reported it is excellent so I knew it was the real deal and wanted to get one for Minnesota.  It is only a 15 minute drive from my home office so a lunch break had a birding trip in store!

The bird was on the flat as described and there were some very fun and helpful birders there.  There was also a beautiful non-breeding Hudsonian Godwit as well as Long Billed Dowicher, Black Bellied Plover, and a selection of Sandpipers as well.  American Pipits were also on the flat and found by another diligent birder.

Please note that this digiscoped picture is zoomed all the way to 70X and the conditions were cloudy and rainy.  If you had a DSLR with a 600mm and teleconverter the photo would not have been any better with the distance the gull was from us.  But you can still see it is a juvi.

When on my trip to Washington State this summer were were able to see Sabines in breeding plumage and they are easily the most beautiful gull there is.  The pelagic was with Westport Seabirds and I highly recommend them.  The spotters were very helpful and experienced.  We had a rough trip out due to a really low tide that day but the birding once we got out was fantastic.  If you ever go on a pelagic please join in on spotting and ID'ing!  Don't just sit there and wait for the announcements.  Participate and learn from the experience.  Only 4-6 of the 22 of us, at most,  were participating in the spotting which was disappointing.  But I digress.

I birded the park out back and Old Cedar as well this week but the results were disappointing.  Warblers have been very light all fall and the leaves are still very green making it difficult when they are not calling.  I can say the fall has been underwhelming migration-wise.  The positive is that we had a new yard bird this week and it was a Merlin!  And sparrows are starting to trickle through now.

Lastly, on Saturday, upon arriving home from a going away party for a friend i heard immature GHO's calling in the park out back.  There were three owls all together and we have not heard this many.  Usually one is all.  I hope this does not hurt the chances of the red phase Eastern Screech Owl coming back to its winter roost.  And one landed on the roof of the neighbor's house.  It was a fun end to the evening!

At Grey Cloud I was able to get this photo of a Field Sparrow Saturday.  Again, not much going on here migration wise either.