Yesterday was a quiet day at work, other than a brief chat with Seabird where we mostly talked about work anyway. But in the evening I met Famie my Irish teacher for dinner at Botanist Social Club. We split a whitefish with pasta that was like orzo but called something else, and a mushroom flatbread. We each got a fancy cocktail, and mine looked like I was at a tea party.
It was a lot like a gin fizz, but it was supposed to have lavender in it, which I didn't really taste. Anyway, it was delicious. Then Famie and I went to the Bartell Theater to see
The McAdo, which is the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta
The Mikado but set in Scotland instead of Japan. One of the volunteers there is someone I played in the high school orchestra with (she played viola), and she wanted a selfie. You can see I dressed for the occasion.
Which reminds me, at Botanist Social Club there were tons of women dressed like flappers, which both delighted and puzzled me. Apparently they were all going to
The Great Gatsby at the Overture Center, according to the hostess, so then it all made sense. Our play was a lot of fun, and the man who played Katisha was hilarious. I loved the costumes, especially the McAdo's bright orange tartan. It was a really fun night out, while Travalon relaxed after a taxing work week. I gave him something to cheer him up when I finally got home.
It rained almost all day yesterday, and I'd been a bit concerned that there would be terrible storms when I went out, but it was just a steady drizzle. This morning was the same thing, and Travalon and I decided to go to Horicon Marsh, since the birds are more active in drizzly weather than when the sun is blazing. Also, the Old Marsh Road has no shade on it, so it's much pleasanter on overcast days. Here are some photos of what we saw from the boardwalk. First, a tree swallow.
Various sorts of terns.
Merlin says this is a young yellow-headed blackbird.
Merlin says this is a black tern, so maybe it is an immature one.
We did see a couple of mature yellow-headed blackbirds.
And some immature barn swallows.
We also took photos of flowers. My phone won't identify this, but I think it's either a cornflower or a bachelor's button.
It does say this is amphibious bistort.
The may apples have "apples" now.
These are purple coneflowers.
And these are wild snapdragons. We used to call them butter and eggs.
For some reason Blogspot loaded this next batch of photos in reverse order, so these are egrets we saw in a tree from the overlook.
Purple martins.
This pelican looks like an immature one.
Speaking of immature... anyway, here I am in front of a big patch of wild cucumber in bloom. It smelled so good!
We saw a big duck convention.
And a swallow convention.
This is a wood duck. I think it's a male with non-breeding plumage.
Here is the cormorant rookery.
We saw a swan in the distance.
We saw a couple of pied-billed grebes.
This is an immature gallinule. I saw a mature one from Old Marsh Road, but it was too quick for Travalon to get a photo of it.
Then we went to the Horicon rail yard, which Travalon tells me is the very first Wisconsin and Southern rail yard, and we saw some really cool graffiti.
I also have screenshots of graffiti from videos posted on social media, but this post is already long enough so I'll save those for another day.
