N. Shrike, N. Harriers, St. Clair county

[Russell Emmons]

While running errands yesterday in our area we decided to check the status of the nearby Belle River. It had overflowed its banks in many spots and water was right under the bottom of most bridges. The St. Clair River appeared still quite low with mud areas under the docks aways out.
  While looking for our new "local" Pileated Woodpeckers, (no luck) we came across a Northern Shrike on Mayer Rd. (the line between China & Casco Twps.) south of St. Clair Hiway. A bit further south on Mayer we had a pair of Harriers working the fields just north of Meisner Rd.
    It has been otherwise very quiet birdwise in this area. A few lingering Redpolls at our feeders but Goldfinch, Juncos etc. just beginning to filter back in after the thaw.

    Along the St. Clair River and out on Anchor Bay drive likewise with many species such as Gulls, ducks, etc. conspicuous by their absence. We did manage to find about 10 Common Mergansers, 5 Bufflehead, a few Mallards and one lone Redhead!  Several Tundra Swans on the River mostly on the Canadian side. That was about it other then the usual Starlings, Doves etc.

Russ Emmons, Casco Twp. St. Clair county
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://lists.envirolink.org/pipermail/mich-chat/attachments/20080113/97139f36/attachment.html