[wisb] Columbia County Big Day today

From: Peter Fissel <pfissel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: Wisconsin Birding Network <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sat, 08 May 2010 22:24:20 -0500
Our team of Nolan Pope, Peter Gorman, John Romano and myself did Columbia 
County for the Madison Audubon Big Birding Day today.  MAS largely follows the 
ABA Big Day rules, except with a modified 13-hour schedule (4:00 a.m. to 5 p.m. 
- the early ending time is to allow teams from the seven-county South Central 
Wisconsin area to make to Madison by 6:00 p.m. to turn in their results and 
attend the banquet at 7:00.)

We started dark and early in the wind and rain at Mud Lake Wildlife Area.  
After picking up some common birds at Hagan and Hanson Rds., we moved over to 
Tollefson Rd. and finally heard a Sora (some of us heard a Virginia Rail at one 
of those locations - can't remember which.)  After going to a couple of other 
nearby spots and hearing a WHIP-POOR-WILL and peenting Am. Woodcock (one of the 
latter nearly ended up in Peter Gorman's front grill,) then a fairly 
unproductive trip to Grassy Lake, we returned to Mud Lake for passerines. On 
our way in on Tollefson Rd., we saw a COMMON MOORHEN quite close to the road.  
We hit about our only flock of warblers of the day just a little ways in on a 
trail - had one very vocal CERULEAN WARBLER in with them.  As we were driving 
back out, we stopped at the curve on Tollefson that overlooks the marsh to 
listen for bitterns, but instead had a calling KING RAIL (easily our best bird 
on the day.)

Overall, with the "lovely" weather (nothing like scoping shorebirds in the 
driving sleet,) warblers and other passerines were fairly hard to come by.  We 
did pick up some of our other "target" birds, such as EURASIAN COLLARED DOVE in 
Arlington and BOBOLINKS at Pine Island W.A., and we did pretty well with 8 
species of raptors (including PEREGRINES at Pine Island and Goose Pond.)  
However, our anticipated shorebird bounty at Harvey/Wangsness was less than we 
had hoped, with many fewer species than we had seen there during scouting 
trips.  Best birds there were single AM. GOLDEN and BLACK-BELLIED PLOVERS (the 
former in stunning breeding plumage.)  Also had AMERICAN PIPITS (lots) and 
LAPLAND LONGSPURS there.

At Schoeneberg Marsh, we ran into a couple of birders who said they'd heard 
there was a female Ruff (aka Reeve) at Schumacher Rd. in Dane Co.  Since that 
was on our way to the post-count banquet, we all stopped there a little after 
5:00 p.m.  Most of the shorebirds were on the west side and the light was 
terrible, so we didn't make much of an effort.  I'm not sure I'd recommend 
anyone coming any distance to look for it without some sort of corroboration.

Peter Fissel
barely awake in
Madison, Dane Co.
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[wisb] Columbia County Big Day today

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