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karlbardon | profile | all galleries >> Galleries >> Lake of the Woods waterbird colonies tree view | thumbnails | slideshow

Lake of the Woods waterbird colonies

On June 25th 2017, I joined Jeff Birchem during his weekly DNR survey of the waterbird colonies in the Northwest Angle on Lake of the Woods, Minnesota. Jeff's daughter Johanna and Beth Siverhus were also along. We discovered a colony of 35 Caspian Tern nests, the first nesting for this species on Lake of the Woods (and only the second colony location in Minnesota). Note that on July 3rd, Jeff and I revisited this colony and found that it had quickly grown to 60 nests with at least 105 adults present. Many of the nests on July 3rd had only one egg and had apparently just been initiated, while one of the older nests had the first chick that appeared to have just hatched within a few hours. It will be exciting to see if this colony grows like the colony on Leech Lake, which had 129 nests in 2016. This gallery shows not just the Caspian Terns, but also some shots of the islands. Due to Jeff's excellent guiding skills, he was able to position us directly in front of a storm cloud and rainbow:) - complete with a large flock of Common Terns flying through the rainbow! Note that this was an official DNR survey and that landing on these islands is otherwise not advised.
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Caspian Tern colony, showing 105 adults out in the sand away from the main Ring-billed Gull colony
Caspian Tern colony, showing 105 adults out in the sand away from the main Ring-billed Gull colony		 Caspian Tern colony
Caspian Tern colony		 Caspian Tern colony- five nests visible in the sand
Caspian Tern colony- five nests visible in the sand		 Caspian Tern colony
Caspian Tern colony
Caspian Tern colony, note adult standing at nest with two eggs
Caspian Tern colony, note adult standing at nest with two eggs		 Caspian Tern colony, note adult standing at nest with recently hatched chick
Caspian Tern colony, note adult standing at nest with recently hatched chick		 Caspian Tern standing at nest with recently hatched chick, close-up
Caspian Tern standing at nest with recently hatched chick, close-up		 Caspian Tern chick, recently hatched, note eggshell on its back
Caspian Tern chick, recently hatched, note eggshell on its back
Caspian Tern nest out in sand, note the crayfish claws!
Caspian Tern nest out in sand, note the crayfish claws!		 Caspian Tern nest, note the lack of nest material and finer egg spotting compared to Ring-billed Gull
Caspian Tern nest, note the lack of nest material and finer egg spotting compared to Ring-billed Gull		 Ring-billed Gull nest in vegetation with a lot of nest material
Ring-billed Gull nest in vegetation with a lot of nest material		 presumed Ring-billed Gull nest in sand
presumed Ring-billed Gull nest in sand
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