Update - 2 Nov 09

It's been a while since I've updated my blog. My apologies!

We went back up to Kossuth County on our way to Minneapolis to see if any more Smith's Longspurs were around but alas, we only found 1500+ Lapland's. Perhaps the Smith's moved on?

Here are a couple pictures of the habitat the Smith's were in:

We also birded Clear Lake twice this weekend. Highlights included a WESTERN/CLARK'S GREBE and WHITE-WINGED SCOTER. I only managed one terrible digiscoped picture of the scoter before a boat flushed it:

Can you say Cackling Geese? These were along the shore of Clear Lake. Take your pick:

And not really bird related... but a couple days ago from the dam at Saylorville, apparently the Army thought it needed to practice water retrieval for fire safety. Or maybe it was training for new pilots? Either way, this helicopter was picking up water and dumping it along the shore on random things:

And lastly, who knew there was a National Hobo Museum? Well, we found one along our drive in northern Iowa!