Today I had really wanted to go to Horicon Marsh, since this time last year we went and saw all sorts of bird, so after Mass and brunch Travalon and I hopped in the car. We stopped at the canoe launch by the dog park near our house, where we could see more of the hooded mergansers we saw yesterday, along with ring-necked ducks, Canada geese, gulls, and a muskrat. This first picture is a ring-necked duck with some Canada geese.
Here are geese, hooded mergansers, and ring-necked ducks.
In this picture, you can see the gulls in the upper right.
This is a female hooded merganser.
This is a pair of hooded mergansers. The male has the big black and white crest.
Here are the ring-necked ducks. They have a ring around their bills.
This male hooded merganser doesn't have his crest as puffed up as the one on the far right.
And here's the muskrat! He seemed to scare off the ducks, but maybe they were scared of us.
Then we drove to Horicon, and first we went to the three-mile drive with the boardwalk, but the drive was blocked off to cars for the winter, so we walked to the boardwalk. We saw lots of Canada geese.
We did see six sandhill cranes fly overhead, but Travalon couldn't get a photo of them. We took a path we had not gone on before, and we found this stone wall.
Then a whole bunch of geese flew overhead! They were very loud.
We went to the spot where we saw a whooping crane last year, but we didn't even see any geese there. But then this young eagle flew by.
We went to the part where the white-headed goose always hangs out, but we couldn't find it. All the geese seemed to be sleeping on the ice.
Today the gift shop was actually open, so we went in to check it out. I asked the woman behind the counter if the white-headed goose was back, and she said, "Yes! We just saw him today!" So Travalon and I went back out, and the geese were all awake and walking in one direction.
A younger couple was looking through the powerful scope toward the geese, and I asked if they saw the white-headed goose. They said, "What? Oh yes, I do see him!" So I looked through the powerful scope and saw him. Travalon looked too, and then he took a photo.
I really think he may be a swoose, because he looks like sweese I have seen on the internet. This would explain why we have never seen him with babies; if he were just a cross between a Canada goose and a snow goose, he should (according to the internet) be fertile. Also, I haven't seen snow geese at Horicon Marsh, but there are certainly enough swans around (not today) that this could have happened. This guy clearly thinks he is just a Canada goose, so that must have been what his mother was. He has a mate and a seemingly happy life, so he has no idea that he's a freak of nature. This is at least the eighth year he has come back to Horicon Marsh, so he seems to be healthy and accepted by the flock. And maybe he's a female, but in this photo he seems to be following his mate, and my understanding is that male geese follow female ones, so if you see two geese swimming, the one in front is the female. He is usually patrolling while she is sitting on the nest, but they do take turns. Anyway, he is a fun sight in the middle of all these seemingly identical Canada geese.
The one thing I was hoping to see was a snowy owl, because people have been posting photos of them on social media like crazy. There were supposedly four in downtown Monona, but I'm rarely there these days. We didn't see any at Horicon, but they sell stuffed ones in the gift shop, so I asked the woman who worked there if they had them around, and she said more on the north side of the marsh. Who knows? Maybe as we were gazing at the piles of snow in the marsh, one was gazing back and we never noticed.
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