Hot Day in Horicon Marsh

 

This morning I woke up feeling stuffed up and yucky, unsure if it was a virus or just bad allergies. I took a pill and we had a relaxed morning, and late in the morning I felt well enough for us to head up to Horicon Marsh. It was a warm, very sunny day, but that Old Marsh Road path is only open until the end of August, so we need to use it while we can. First we went on the boardwalk, but we saw nothing. Travalon said he was in the mood for Taco Bell for lunch, maybe inspired by the mysterious delivery that appeared in our hallway yesterday with his name but the wrong last initial that we had definitely not ordered. (You cannot get a hold of Uber Eats to report such things; they only let you log in to report problems with your own order, so you can't contact them about a problem with someone else's.) Then we went to Guth's, where they make the platonic ideal of a peanut butter cup. Besides the ones we always get with milk chocolate and mini M&Ms, they had plain milk chocolate and plain dark chocolate. We got the plain dark chocolate but really missed the mini M&Ms - perhaps if they put those on the dark chocolate ones, that would be the absolute ideal peanut butter cup.

Then we went to Old Marsh Road. There had been hardly anyone at the boardwalk, which is usually pretty popular, so imagine our surprise that there were a lot of people on Old Marsh Road when we usually see nobody else. There were even people biking on it! My goal was to see a gallinule, because I kept hearing them, but alas, we did not succeed in this goal. We did see lots of other birds.

Here are a few photos from the boardwalk path, some lavender bee balm and the tree that looks like a magical doorway to a secret world.

Here are the birds we saw along Old Marsh Road. First, a juvenile pelican all by itself.

We saw some pie-billed grebes swimming. They are small and very cute.

This one is juvenile - you can tell by the pattern on its head.

Here are some photos of the pelicans in flight.

There were pelicans swimming too.

There was a very loud adult black-necked stilt.

And a teenage one.

Lots of terns were flying around and diving into the water.

Some women told us this is a Wilson's snipe, but I must confess that I couldn't tell the difference between this and a woodcock.

There were some coots swimming around, but we didn't see the gallinules.

This is the only yellow-headed blackbird we saw, and it's a juvenile, or possibly a female. I don't know what the bird next to it is.

The black-necked stilt again.

We saw a number of gull parties.

As always, cormorants were hanging out with the pelicans. Those women who told us that one bird was a Wilson's snipe also said they had seen gallinules with the pelicans, but I wonder if they meant cormorants?

Isn't this water lily beautiful?

We also saw sandhill cranes, but no whooping cranes. And no swans either, so it was just a Two Big White Birds kind of day.

Here is that young pelican all by itself again.

Not far from the end of the trail, we saw this egret.

All we saw at the place where the white-headed goose hangs out were some purple martins.

On the way home, a bunch of turkeys crossed the road, and we saw a puddle with ducks in it.

The one duck is a mallard, but the one on the right in the picture with two ducks has a very long bill. Is it just a weird angle, or is this actually a northern shoveler?

We came home and had a quiet evening. Taking that long walk in all that heat was all that we were up for today. It felt good to come home, take a shower, and just relax.

Famous Hat