Lots of Big White Birds

 

This morning Travalon and I had our leftover pasta for breakfast, along with some eggs and those hotel waffles I try to avoid. However, this morning they just smelled too good, and we couldn't resist. Thus fortified, we headed off to the Necedah Wildlife Refuge, where we have always had good luck seeing whooping cranes.

On the way to the Nature Center at Necedah is a patch of marsh where a pair of whooping cranes used to nest, but there was no sign of a whooping crane (or anything else) there today. We continued on to the Nature Center and took a walk on the path that goes on two different boardwalks, where we saw a number of swans. I think, judging by the sound they make, that they are tundra swans.

We also saw lots of blooming lupines.

And blooming wild indigo.

Here is a patch of lupines. The color is between blue and lavender and so pleasing to the eye.

What are these weird stripes? Contrails?

This is a goose family.

And here is what the boardwalk looks like as it zigzags through the marsh.

When we got back to the nature center, we sat watching the bird feeder, hoping to see a pileated woodpecker. We never saw one, but we did see a red-headed woodpecker.

And some bluejays.

Beneath the feeder were a bunch of red-winged blackbirds and brown-headed cowbirds.

Here are a red-winged blackbird and two grackles on the feeder.

The red-headed woodpecker landed in a nearby tree.

Then we took a very sketchy gravel road, hoping to get to a causeway. At one point there was a sketchy bridge over a creek, and Travalon got out to inspect it, but he deemed it safe to drive over, and it held up just fine. Finally we got to our crossroad, and it was paved! Better yet, it leads to another paved road, so in the future we can go into this part of the preserve without taking the scary gravel roads. We did find the causeway and drive over it, and we saw a lone whooping crane.

I am guessing this is one of the single females that left Horicon in hopes of finding a mate. We parked and walked on some of the Lupine Loop path, although parts of it looked tick-laden. (I did find three ticks on myself this weekend. Yikes!) We came to a really remote part of the marsh, full of water lilies.

There was a tiny island. It really felt like a place nobody had ever seen before, though of course this was some sort of service road so obviously park personnel have seen it before.

There was a swan on the far side of the water.

Another view of the island.

I said that while I like being around people and can't imagine living somewhere so remote, I love visiting places where there are no other people around, and Travalon agreed. Then we drove back, and the whooping crane was gone, although we had heard her calling so we assumed she hadn't gone far. We drove on the paved road and went all the way around to the main entrance again to get to the observation tower. From up there we could see a whooping crane. The same one? Another one?

Travalon took a lot of photos of swans from the observation tower, but most didn't really turn out. This one did appeal to me.

There was even a whooping crane on the far side of the marsh, but that photo is really blurry. Then we went back to the nature center, and Travalon laughed when he saw this trash panda on one of the bird feeders. It bolted when it saw him, then it hid and watched him.

Merlin says this is a female rose-breasted grosbeak.

The mammals were really trying to take  over the bird feeders!

Merlin says this brown bird is a female brown-headed cowbird.

And here are a couple of photos of the bluejay.

I can't tell what this bird is, but I love that it has an insect in its mouth.

Here it is enjoying this other kind of bird feeder.

You can see some swans from the visitor center.

We had "lunch" at around six at a Chinese buffet in Mauston, so it was just dinner since we had such a substantial breakfast. As we drove home, I saw a rainbow around the sun, but the edge is a bit cut off since I was taking this from a moving car.

Still, a very cool effect. We stopped in Sauk, and Travalon saw one lone pelican at the dam.

Where did all the others go? Then we went to the VFW Park to keep alive our tradition of visiting a memorial on Memorial Day.

I had said to Travalon that today we only saw two of the Big White Birds, lots of swans and at least two whooping cranes, but then I remembered that yesterday we saw an egret and tons of pelicans (plus the one at Sauk), so it really was a Four Big White Birds Weekend. Those are my favorite kind.

Famous Hat