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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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Ring-billed Gull chick
Ring-billed Gull chick
Ring-billed Gull chick
Ring-billed Gull chick
Ring-billed Gull and chick
Ring-billed Gull and chick
Ring-billed Gulls and chicks
Ring-billed Gulls and chicks
Ring-billed Gulls in territorial squabble
Ring-billed Gulls in territorial squabble
Ring-billed Gull and shadow
Ring-billed Gull and shadow
Ring-billed Gull and rainbow
Ring-billed Gull and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
Common Terns and rainbow
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