I had been wanting to get back to Horicon Marsh because the bird nerd group on social media were posting photos of baby swans, a baby whooping crane, and a limpkin (usually not found north of Florida) that were all there. This morning I did see that the whooping crane colt had died yesterday, so that's very sad. We need more whooping cranes in this world. The Old Marsh Road is only open from June to August, so we wanted to walk on that. The first thing we saw as we came into the road tour is lots of egrets.
There were so many cars parked at the entrance to Old Marsh Road that we went to the boardwalk instead, and we saw two whooping cranes up close! I wonder if this is the pair that just lost their colt?
This is a red-winged blackbird's nest.
Then we drove to the other entrance to Old Marsh Road, on the east side of the marsh. I was hoping to see yellow-headed blackbirds, and my birdsong app Merlin said I was hearing them, along with song sparrows, marsh wrens, red-winged blackbirds, and gallinules. Then I did see some! They are very striking when they fly, with their white epaulets and bright yellow heads. Here is one with a red-winged blackbird behind him.
Here he is. Travalon did get a photo of him in flight, but it's sort of blurry.
We saw black terns and Caspian terns, but those are very hard to photograph because they move so quickly. Travalon did get some good photos of black-necked stilts in flight. They are very loud! They were yelling at us for invading their space.
And of course we saw egrets.
We saw pelicans (but no swans, so only three of the four Big White Birds), and as usual, they were hanging out with cormorants.
We saw this lone great blue heron.
This is what the black-necked stilts look like when they land. Travalon said they look like "skinny penguins."
And here is another egret.
Weirdly, as we were heading back out of the marsh, we ran into a couple who seemed to be serious birders. They had cameras with huge lenses, and they asked if we had seen yellow-headed blackbirds and black-necked stilts. We said yes, both, and they asked how far we had to go to see them. How do you answer that question? "Close" for someone like me who walks five miles a day might be "unbelievably far" to someone else. We said just a little further, and they said they had people waiting in the car, which made it seem even weirder. I mean, if they were two randos who heard you could see such and such bird, I could understand them wanting to just walk a few yards because people were waiting, but they seemed to be true bird nerds. They even asked if we had seen the limpkin! (We never did.) I would think serious birders would know you have to walk a ways into the marsh and then wait patiently to see birds. It's not the zoo, where you know exactly where each animal is located.
We had to hurry back to Madison for the birthday party of the Dairyman's Daughter. Rich, Kathbert, Cecil Markovitch, the Single B-Boy, and the woman with the fabulous porch were there too. (At one point my blog came up, and that woman said, "I hope that isn't the only fabulous thing about me!" so maybe she needs an actual name on this blog. Any ideas?) The Dairyman's Daughter brought lasagna and garlic bread, and Rich made a Black Magic cake. Other people brought wine and Caesar salad, but we brought more cheese curds because I thought it would be clever to put them in the Home Plate cheese bowl we got at the game last night. (I forgot to mention that the Mallards did a lot of base stealing too. One guy stole second on a wild pitch, and then he stole third on the next pitch!) However, cheese curds didn't really go with the meal, and we ate right away so nobody needed them as an appetizer. We really should have brought ice cream to go with the cake. We were in a meeting room at the Diocesan Center, and we sat around talking about birds and Monty Python and all sorts of random stuff. The Dairyman's Daughter works there, and she told us we could take anything from the Giveaway Table, so I took this:
It says "Peace" in English, Latin, French, Spanish, Hebrew, Russian, and Arabic, and it's set on a piece of marble. Just the sort of totally useless thing that I love. The Dairyman's Daughter had specifically asked for no presents, but of course Cecil gave her a cookbook, of recipes from Monet's hometown in France, and she opened right to one that said: "Beignets, or Nuns' Farts." Ha! Sounds like something Mr. Why would have said!
I forgot to post this earlier, but on the way to Horicon we stopped for coffee at Higher Grounds in Beaver Dam, and they had this clever sign.
Also, I got this sticker this morning.
It's always a good day for some DuoLingo bragging!
Famous Hat
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