April 2023 - February 2024 MBWeekends & MBWeeks
~ Our 38th Season ~
• Minnesota Birding Weekends ~ 2023-24 Season
Minnesota Birding Weekends continues to offer unique, modestly priced weekend (and weekday) birding tours throughout Minnesota since we originated in 1986. Since then, we've had nearly 9,800 MBW registrations (MBWeeks included), 440+ MBWeekends, and a composite list of 371 species seen in the state.
• Minnesota Birding Weeks ~ 2023-24 Season
In addition to our MBWeekends, our schedule of out-of-state MBWeeks has now resumed after a limited selection of trips during the past 3 years due to Covid. There have now been more than 120 MBWeeks since the first one in February 1988, with over 720 species now on our composite list. And note the very modest cost of MBWeeks – typically only about a half the cost of similar tours offered by others!
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This MBWbirds website also includes...
• A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota updates
The 5th edition of A Birder's Guide to Minnesota has now been published and became available in early November 2022 ... along with a second printing with minor changes as of May 20. A continuing series of updates has begun and becomes an ongoing work in progress for this newest edition: these corrections and additions will provide those using this reference with the most accurate and up-to-date information as it becomes available.
This series of 70 bird identification articles is still available in a print edition, with 100+ photographs added and new covers in the 3rd printing. These articles were originally published in The Loon, journal of the Minnesota Ornithologists’ Union, 1995 - 2012.
Municipal sewage ponds (also known as sewage lagoons, settling ponds, wastewater treatment ponds, etc.) are often productive birding sites. Accordingly, an expanded checklist of Minnesota’s 400+ known sewage ponds (now with a link to maps with the locations all the ponds) is included here.
Here are checklists with the 371 species recorded on MBWeekends (all within MN) and the composite MBW list of 720+ species (i.e, MBWeeks & MBWeekends combined).
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For additional information, contact: Kim Richard Eckert, eckertkr@gmail.com (e-mail);
218 349 5953 (cell); 1921 W. Kent Rd., Duluth MN 55812 (U.S. mail).
Also available are GUIDING SERVICES for those interested in a personal or group tour – in Minnesota or other states and provinces in the U.S. and Canada.
And finally, what would any self-respecting website be without the obligatory BLOG
...especially this website which always has believed in Social-Media Distancing from Facebook and all the other nonsense out there.
MBWbirds.com
Tropical Parula
High Island-Hill Country MBWeek
April 2012
(KRE photo)
Black Guillemot
North Shore
MBWeekend November 2009
(KRE photo)
WHAT'S NEW IN THIS and RECENT UPDATES . . .
• The 38th season of MBWs continues with two MBWeekends in April
(at Rothsay in Wilkin Co., and in Martin-Faribault-Freeborn-Mower
counties); the High Island-Hill Country MBWeek was also in April
(see mbwbirds.com/high-i-hill-c.html). And more recently, see the
summary of the St. Cloud-based MBW at mbwbirds.com/stearns.html.
• As for other MBWs on this year's schedule...note especially that the
Black Hills MBWeek in June still has 3 vacancies, and that the North
Shore MBWeekends in fall have been revised and rescheduled.
• Corrections and additions were added to the first set of updates to
A Birder's Guide to Minnesota; see mbwbirds.com/abgtm.html.
~ MAY 19, 2023 ~
(previous update May 9)
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A BIRDER'S GUIDE TO MINNESOTA
• After 3+ years of writing and editing, plus several
delays, the new fifth edition of A Birder's Guide to
Minnesota was finally published in November 2022.
After only 4 months, it is nearly sold out, but a
Second Printing is now available which includes
several minor corrections & additions, a new cover,
and non-spiral binding.
• For additional information on this new edition, and
the 2nd Printing, see mbwbirds.com/abgtm.html,
which includes an ongoing series of updates to
keep this guide current.
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Scott Meyer photo
• This website continues to be dedicated to the memory of Bob Russell. Please