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.
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...
Famous Hat
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