Lapland Longspurs, Rough-legged Hawks, Bob-Whites, St. Clair county

[Russell Emmons]

Birders:   While doing some top-off scouring around late Mon. PM for the GBBC we came across a large flock of Horned Larks, & Snow Buntings, with at least 20 LAPLAND LONGSPURS mixed in . All winter /female type plumage. This flock was around a large working commercial farm in China Twp. Lots of corn spilled around attracting these and a few Mallards, & Tree Sparrows. Also around the farmyard were scads of Starlings and Brown-headed Cowbirds!  In the immediate area not far were 2 ROUGH-LEGGED HAWKS, one light, one dark phased and several Red-tails.

   Sunday while doing GBBC we came across a very lonely, sad, cold GREAT BLUE HERON standing on the ice in the St. Johns Marsh at the end of Anchor Bay Drive at Deckers Landing! Birding this area, other then the Heron, was a waste as everything is frozen solid. Even the north channel of the St. Clair River is essentially frozen over.  Also on Sunday we had a large flock of Snow Buntings/Horned Larks in Columbus Twp. just east of the city of Memphis but did not see any Longspurs there!

   On Saturday our daughter Jennifer had 2 BOB WHITE QUAIL along Church Road in her neighborhood of Casco Twp. One of only a couple of sightings in MI for the GBBC! On Saturday we had several TUNDRA SWANS on the St. Clair River off Marine City.
Also of interest, several EASTERN SCREECH OWLS in several of the Townships in this area for the GBBC, plus several NORTHERN HARRIERS,  KESTRELS, EASTERN BLUEBIRDS,  AMERICAN ROBINS, CEDAR WAXWINGS, plenty of WILD TURKEYS, a few RING-NECKED PHEASANTS,  a GREAT HORNED OWL in broad daylight, and lastly hundreds, if not thousands of REDHEADS, CANVASBACKS among a potporri of misc. other duck species of lesser numbers on the St. Clair River!

The farm where the LONGSPURS were is about 3 miles west of the St. Clair River, about 1 mile south of the city of St. Clair at the corner of Indian Trail and Puttygut Rds. From M29 take Puttygut Rd. (called 30 Mile Rd. in Macomb county)  west about 3 miles to Indian Trail  (Stop sign!) From I-94 get off at Exit 257, go east to King Rd., south to Puttygut, west to Indian Trail Rd.--- Puttygut Rd. is just north of the St. Johns/River District medical complex on M29.   One of the Rough-leggeds was between the hospital and the Mega- electric towers along Puttygut Rd.

Russ Emmons, Casco Twp. St. Clair county  
birdeland at pasty.net  



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