A Tale of Two Marshes: Patrick and Horicon

 

Today after Mass there was a Care for Creation meeting, so Travalon had to take the plastic for recycling over to Pick N Save on his own. This set us back a bit in our schedule to go to Horicon Marsh today, and we stopped by Patrick Marsh first. It was very windy, and at first we didn't see any birds, but then we realized they were out there, it was just harder to see them among the waves. Travalon did manage to get some good photos, but in some of them the birds were behind or under the waves. First, I believe this is a juvenile Bonaparte's gull.

We saw two loons. This one was a lot closer to us.

There were a pair of canvasbacks and a pair of red-headed ducks swimming together. Travalon unfortunately never got a good photo of the male canvasback, but here is the female.

And here is the male red-headed duck.

There was also a tiny horned grebe swimming around and constantly diving.

Here is the loon again.

There were also buffleheads, common mergansers, red-breasted mergansers, and a pied-billed grebe, but those photos are from further away or not as clear. Oddly, no pelicans - there are often dozens of them in Patrick Marsh.

Then we drove to Horicon Marsh and saw egrets in the pond at the start of the scenic drive.

We also saw a pair of ring-necked ducks and a pair of red-headed ducks in the pond.

We walked on the boardwalk and saw northern shovelers.

This poor male blue-winged teal was being blown around by the wind. His mate is just to the right of this photo.

This red-winged blackbird tried to fly away as we approached, and the wind blew him right back into the rope he'd been sitting on! So Travalon was able to get an extreme close-up of him.

It began to rain, so we hurried back to the car and continued on the scenic drive. We saw a pair of swans, which I am assuming are trumpeter swans because they were quiet, their necks are dirty, and they appear to be a breeding pair. Tundra swans are noisy, hang out in big crowds, and don't get dirty necks, and they do not breed this far south.

As we drove through the town of Horicon, we saw a bunch of train cars with beautiful graffiti.

We also saw this flock of turkeys hanging out by the tracks. This is only part of the flock - there were at least twice as many as this.

Then, as we drove back toward Beaver Dam, we saw a flooded field with all sorts of birds hanging out in it. It was almost better than what we saw at Horicon! We saw a pied-billed grebe and not one but two black-necked stilts, as well as mallards and Canada geese which are not pictured because they are everywhere, including just off our dock.

Though I have to say that, this spring, I have seen way more shovelers than mallards. Are they actually surpassing them in population? I'm not sure they stay here to breed, which the mallards do so we see them all summer and even in the winter, hanging out in the places where the water doesn't freeze over completely. 

After that we went to Columbus to see if we could watch a train pass by, but we had missed the Amtrak by about half an hour, and no freight train went by in the few minutes we waited. Travalon tried to find a free train tracking app, but he didn't have any luck. By then it was too late to bother with band practice, but I had already warned them that I didn't know what time we'd get back to town so I might not make it.

One thing that was frustrating was that my FitBit didn't give me credit for a workout when we walked on the boardwalk, so back home I walked around while listening to music and still didn't get credit. I checked my settings, and the setting to notify me of a workout was turned off for some reason, so I turned it back on and went into the app, and I'd gotten credit for a workout for both walks. Whew! How the setting got turned off, I have no idea. Weird things would happen to my FitBit if I showered with it on, so I've been taking it off while I'm in the shower for ages. Also, the gift card I was supposed to get via email in fourteen days, so by today, never came. I was about to email them when I reread it and realized it said fourteen BUSINESS days, so they have until Thursday. Hopefully the Belleek castle tower is still available on eBay by then...

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Nine Springs E-Way, Marty Stuart, and a Scottish Ceilidh

 

Yesterday I worked from home, then in the evening Travalon, Kathbert, and I went to Rich's house for Easter leftovers. It was so enjoyable to have nerdy talk with Rich and Kathbert, just like in the old days. 

Today there was an Irish dance competition in town, and some of my Irish culture peeps went to that (including Famie), but Travalon and I wanted to get outside. The weather wasn't great today, but it was fantastic for what we wanted to do, which was birdwatching. We went to Nine Springs E-Way and saw a ton of birds, although the first few photos are from yesterday off our dock. First, a female shoveler.

Here is a male shoveler beating his wings in front of two blue-winged teals.

Tux Duck and his lady love:

Here are a couple of photos of a female bufflehead.

And I believe this is a female mallard, though it could be a shoveler - it's hard to see the bill.

There were other photos of ducks in the distance, mostly shovelers but a few hooded mergansers. They were not in clear enough focus to post.

Here are photos from today at Nine Springs E-Way. First, a pair of buffleheads.

We saw lots of coots.

And blue-winged teals.

And tons of northern shovelers.

Another coot:

A male bufflehead:

More shovelers:

Some ring-necked ducks:

And more shovelers:

I believe the duck in this next photo that isn't a shoveler is a gadwall:

And here is a male ring-necked duck with the shovelers:

More buffleheads:

Here are a couple of shots of a green-winged teal:

Fact: the reason I wanted to go to Nine Springs E-Way was because we saw green-winged teals there before, and we were not disappointed today. I'm not sure what the duck is hanging out with the coots in this next photo - maybe a pintail duck?

Here is a very large pelican with a very small pied-billed grebe.

And here they have been joined by a couple of ring-necked ducks:

A close-up of the pelican:

And a close-up of the pied-billed grebe:

A pair of blue-winged teals.

Another male shoveler.

And the pied-billed grebe again.

I thought the coots were very loud, but my Merlin app didn't say it heard any, just Canada geese and red-winged blackbirds... and then I heard a sora, and so did Merlin. I didn't see it, but nobody ever sees them. They are little rails that hide in the reeds, and they are harder to see than gallinules. Both have kind of a laughing call, since I believe they are related, and so are coots.

Travalon and I drove to Stoughton and had lunch at a family restaurant, then we went to the Stoughton Opera House to see Marty Stuart. This man is a hero of mine, since he plays the mandolin way better than I can - he can even bend notes! And the rest of his band were fabulous too. The Stoughton Opera House only has bathrooms in the basement, and we were up in the balcony, but fortunately if you have to go in the middle of the concert, nobody else is using the elevator - ask me how I know. Also, the seats are very small and close together, so an usher took pity on Travalon and asked if we wanted to move to chairs set up behind the seats, maybe for ushers or handicapped people, so that was great - even I was finding the seats a tight fit, and my legs aren't particularly long. We weren't supposed to take videos (but some people did), but I did take a quick photo of the lights on the ceiling.

It looked better in real life, but you get the idea. Since the show was in the midafternoon, it was still light out afterwards, so we went to Fish Camp Park on Lake Kegonsa and saw more cool birds. First, a pair of ring-necked ducks with a couple of coots.

There were lots of coots and Canada geese around.

Here are some coots standing around, and you can kind of see their chicken feet.

We also saw ruddy ducks. They have blue bills!

They were right near a big group of coots.

Here is one of the ruddy ducks again.

And a pied-billed grebe.

We also saw an osprey.

And a great blue heron.

This photo really shows you how strong the waves were - some of the coots are half underwater.

Fortunately we had a cooler in the car, because just like I couldn't finish lunch, I couldn't finish my dinner at the Green Lantern on Lake Waubesa either. This is because of that diet drug, but maybe it's working - don't I look a bit thinner in this photo?

I'm all ready for the St. Andrews Society ceilidh! I did skip both a Baroque concert (with flutes!) and the Daughter of Denni's band to attend it, and then Travalon and I were so tired that we only danced two dances. It was fun to watch the other people dance, and the band was pretty good, but best of all the caller cracked out his bagpipes and played while three very skilled dancers did the Highland Fling. I don't know why I love watching that dance so much. I like the Irish dancing, like the competition that we skipped earlier today, but I LOVE the Scottish Highland dancing. It's much more exciting.

Travalon was looking at different groups in Madison based on ethnicity, and he found a Manx one. Really? They had a website where you could look to see if you had a Manx name, but none of the names on the list are ones I know of in my own family. It's very cheap to join that group, so I'm tempted, even if I don't seem to have any Manx in me. It's all Celtic, right? Good enough for me!

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