Most of this winter wasn't too bad.

Snow and cold temperatures weren't very extreme, especially in December and early January. Below zero temperatures held off until January 11 in the Twin Cities, and all of this warmth helped late lingering migrants and Christmas Count totals. But on January 10 and 11 what was described as the worst blizzard on record hit. Especially in southern Minnesota thermometers and barometers nosedived, snowdrifts piled up everywhere, and worst off all extremely high winds blew everything away. Property damage was considerable but worst of all were the scores of people killed as well as severe livestock losses. Birds at feeders were almost wiped out in the southwest part of the state. Most feeder watchers reported losses of around 1/z to 2/3 and at least one observer reported a 100% loss! Species hardest hit were woodpeckers, chickadee, nuthatches, Brown Creeper, House Sparrow, siskin and goldfinch. The fact that some of these are hole and cavity roosters is hard to explain, though one possibility is that the snow driven by the extreme winds was so powdery that suffocation resulted even from a short exposure. At least three people I talked to who were out in the blizzard said they had trouble keeping blowing snow out of nostrils and mouth after just a brief time, so imagine the difficulties a bird would have. I found dead House Sparrows in my yard only two hours after the storm began, and since things continued for another day and a half without letting up, some birds must have gotten hungry enough to venture out to feed and were wiped out. Like I said, most of the winter wasn't bad, but that one weekend kind of spoiled the rest of it.

Perhaps as a result of the storm, birders later in January and February found things pretty quiet in the woods.

However, 45 observers reported a record 142 species. This is mainly due to the mild conditions in December that kept things around, especially for Christmas Counts. I only received copies of 26 counts to use for this report, but there were at least four other counts taken whose results I didn't see, so perhaps a species or two were missed for this compilation. Good Christmas Count totals were in the north (Duluth with 48 species) and west (Big Stone had 44) especially, but the most exciting counts were at Sherburne and Cottonwood. On the Sherburne count a Black-backed Three-toed Woodpecker was south of its normal range, a Townsend's Solitaire made one of its few appearances, and best of all was a first state record Lewis' Woodpecker which hung around for another four months. And Cottonwood had a Prairie Falcon which was the first winter report in the state since the early '60's, along with an unprecedented Pecoral Sandpiper which is certainly a winter first.

Other highlights? Water birds were especially numerous, with such things as Common Loon, Red-necked Grebe, Greater Scaup and White-winged Seater remaining longer than usual.

Grand Marais was the place to be this winter (if you managed to choose the right day): three Mute Swans showed up for only the second time in the state, and BJ and JG had one of the best birding days ever by finding a Barrow's Goldeneye, Harlequin Duck and King Eider in the harbor. Greater Prairie Chickens wandered south to Lincoln Co., and the Northern Bobwhite and Chukar continue to barely hold their own. I forgot to mention Ring-necked Pheasant losses from the blizzard of up to 50 %, but for some reason Gray Partridge seem unaffected by the storm. An immature Iceland Gull made one of its rare appearances, defying the latest Thayer's Gull craze, and the Boreal Owl again just barely kept itself on the regular list by turning up on the Gunflint Trail. Ruby-crowned Kinglets and a Loggerhead Shrike were recorded for only the second time each, and most remarkably were first winter records for Black-andwhite Warbler and Ovenbird. All the winter finches were scarce this winter, except for Evening Grosbeaks, and finally a possible Vesper Sparrow lingered into January in Cottonwood Co.

On the negative side, no one managed to find Gyrfalcon, Spruce Grouse, Thayer's Gull or Short-eared Owl.

I'll end this introduction with a few announcements. First, on behalf of Terry Savaloja, Paul Egeland, myself and all future seasonal report compilers, please throw away your list of county numbers. Counties were given a number a couple years ago to see if a computer could work in compiling these reports. That experiment failed after only one report, and continued use of those numbers makes the compilers' job more difficult. Second, I'm happy to welcome back RG as a contributor to these seasonal reports. Ray has long been an expert on Minnesota birding, but it's been several years since we've heard from him and he turned in the best report of the season.

Also wish Ray luck with his Minnesota year list-as of mid-July he had 278, so he's got an excellent shot at the old record of 290 or even the "impossible" of 300 in one year. Finally, some of you may wonder why some contributors' names or initials change from one report to the other. Other compilers may follow a different method, but I list an observer's name as he lists it on the report form, and we all sign our names in different ways from time to time. As a result, your assigned initials may change because of this or because another contributor with the same initials may turn up. Thus you may be DB one time but DAB the next depending on who's submitting re ports. It is also hoped that some of you who take the trouble to contribute don't get discouraged if your initials seldom get into these seasonal reports.

Information on even those birds too common to document with dates and initials is appreciated, and your report forms are kept on file for possible future reference. There's even an advantage in not using some initials: if Beatrice Smith saw too many good girds, I might be accused of putting too much BS in this report.