This weekend's Salt Lake festival had great birds and beautiful weather. I will not give a summery report, as I expect Ken Larson is putting that together. Some of the highlights: Smith's Longspurs: found on Sunday by Rob and Linda Whyte. Thank you Linda for jumping into your car and coming to get us when you could not reach me on my phone. When we pulled up, Rob was staring into an empty field of dirt with corn stubble. After repeatedly being told that the birds in the empty field were closer than we were looking, we finally saw one move and were able to get a scope on it. The birds were less than fifty feet away and we got great looks. Rob told us that most of the birds were on the other side of the driveway, which had less visibility because cultivation rows ran across our view, rather than parallel to our sight lines. those of us with full hearing capability could hear them calling from the other field, but the ones on our observed field were silent. I estimated that we might have four birds in our field, but when they popped up and flew across the driveway, we counted 13 birds. We had a lot of trouble finding the birds in that field, but when we did, they were even closer. They were almost completely unconcerned with our proximity, convinced of their trait of invisibility. A couple of the group with camera were able to get killer photos. Steve Broste commented, "I have been photographing common birds around my yard and getting unimpressive photos. Not only did I get a lifer, but I took centerfold photos of it!" He promised to post a picture to "Recently Seen" on the MOU page. Location: Mehurin Twshp in Lac qui Parle Co. Directions: Take Hwy 212 to CR7 (2 miles this side of the SD border. Turn south, away from Marietta. Four miles down the road, turn east (left). The birds were in the fields adjacent to the long driveway going north about 1.5 miles away. Your chances of finding the birds here are just about the same as finding them in any sparsely covered field along the border with South Dakota. In the same fields I witnessed an awesome territorial battle between Horned Larks. The one that was facing us, stood straight up on its legs and thrust its tail forward between its legs presenting a striking black display. More later. Steve Weston On Quigley Lake in Eagan, MN [log in to unmask] ---- Join or Leave mou-net: http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?SUBED1=mou-net Archives: http://lists.umn.edu/archives/mou-net.html