Hey birders, I led a local shorebird fieldtrip this morning. We ended up with 60 species total for the trip highlighted by the following shorebirds: Killdeer Greater Yellowlegs Lesser Yellowlegs Solitary Sandpiper Spotted Sandpiper Pectoral Sandpiper Least Sandpiper Semipalmated Sandpiper Baird's Sandpiper Stilt Sandpiper Short-billed Dowitcher Wilson's Phalarope Two locations are worth highlighting. County Road 21 southeast of the Harkin Store was outstanding with numerous egrets, herons, and pelicans. You will need a spotting scope and make sure you pay attention to traffic. There were probably close to 200 shorebirds there and all species except Solitary, Gr. Yellowlegs, and dowitcher. The second location is the "cattle pond" on CR111 north of Nicollet which had numerous peeps and had the dowitcher. There were some shorebirds at the Nicollet sewage ponds (Greater Yellowlegs, Least and Spotted Sandpipers) but this site is difficult to get to because of the construction on Hwy 14. Hwy 14 is closed from Mankato to Nicollet and you cannot go south on CR23 from Nicollet so you’ll have to navigate from CR25 coming in from the west. One other neat sighting that we had was north of Courtland where we had several power lines weighed down by Bank Swallows. There were hundreds staging just north of the middle Courtland WMA. Happy birding! Chad Heins Mankato *Chad Heins* Assistant Professor of Biology Bethany Lutheran College 700 Luther Drive Mankato, MN 56001 Office: 507.344.7327 | Toll Free: 800.944.3066 [log in to unmask] www.blc.edu