Starting in March 1986 in Nobles County, MBWs eventually compiled a list of 371 species within Minnesota, involing a total of more than 9,000 registrations, until our 500th and final MBWeekend in November 2025 along the lower Mississippi River. During these years, there were also more than 125 out-of-state Minnesota Birding Weeks during which 15 states and 7 Canadian provinces were visited and 730+ species were listed – from January 1988 until our final MBWeek in South Texas in February 2024.
To mark this End of an Era, nearly 100 of us met in Duluth in January 2026 to reminisce about these 40 years during two dinners and informal presentations with photos and memories presented from the assembled MBWers, along with field trip in the Duluth area.
~ FEBRUARY 5, 2026 ~
(previous update November 27, 2025)
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MBWbirds.com
This MBWbirds website also includes...
• A Birder’s Guide to Minnesota •
For the most recent updates and additional information on
the new 5th edition and its 2nd printing of A Birder's Guide
to Minnesota, see: mbwbirds.com/abgtm.html. (The fifth
edition was published in November 2022 ... along with a
second printing with minor changes in May 2023). A series
of updates is now an ongoing work in progress, and these
CORRECTIONS and ADDITIONS will provide the most
accurate and up-to-date information as it becomes available.
The most recent set of additions to these updates was in
June 2025, with more installments to come in 2026.
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 Minn.) and the composite MBW list of 730+ species (i.e., MBWeeks & MBWeekends combined).
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For additional information, contact Kim Richard Eckert
eckertkr@gmail.com (email);
218 349 5953 (cell/text); 1921 W. Kent Rd., Duluth MN 55812 (U.S. mail).
40th Minnesota Birding Weekends Reunion
Duluth, Minn. ~ January 9-10-11, 2026
