This morning Travalon and I set out for the Necedah National Wildlife Refuge, where you are pretty much guaranteed to see a whooping crane, as far as we can tell. We had lunch at a Chinese buffet in Mauston and then got to the refuge, where we checked out the bird feeders behind the main building, which had been a great place to see birds on our last trip there. This time they apparently hadn't filled the feeders, so there was no action. (There was no toilet paper in the women's bathroom either - but fortunately plenty in the men's bathroom - so it seems like someone there is falling down on the job.) Of course it got late, so I will just post a few photos tonight and will post more tomorrow, since I'll be working from home and may not have much to say.
First we took the boardwalk hike and saw swans, baby geese, spectacular clouds, lovely ferns, blooming wild indigo, and what looks like a catbird.
We kept hearing a weird sound near the main building, and I wasn't sure if it was a swan trumpeting or someone honking their car horn, but we realized it was actually this weather vane.
We also saw tons of blooming lupines.
I also saw a couple of tiny, periwinkle-blue butterflies, but they were too hard to get a photo of. Then we went up on the observation tower and saw swans, mallards, sandhill cranes, and a whooping crane in the distance.
We took the one paved road that goes deep into the preserve and then drove over the causeway. There was a sign that seemed to imply it was a goose resort.
Do they rent towels and umbrellas? Here is a view from the causeway.
Last time we were there, we saw a whooping crane back there, but today we just saw water and trees.
We decided it would be fun to go to Horicon on the same day, so we drove and drove, picking up some food at Kwik Trip for a picnic before hitting the boardwalk. The first thing we saw was a mallard drake with an abandoned goose egg that has been there for weeks.
This is a female red-winged blackbird:
This is a Homo Sapiens who is married to Travalon.
In the woods, the May apples are still in full bloom.
On the rest of the auto tour, we saw a pied-billed grebe, goose families, and a pair of swans.
Then we drove slowly along the edge of Highway 49 as the sun set. We saw the cormorant rookery.
The red-headed ducks were particularly colorful in the light of the setting sun.
We saw this cormorant with a fish in its mouth.
The sunset was beautiful.
A couple of male northern shovelers.
A mother mallard with babies.
I took this photo with my phone of the sunset afterglow reflected in the water.
I heard the yellow-headed blackbirds but never saw any. Then for some reason Travalon's car hooked up to my phone instead of his, so we listened to my music on the way home, and Travalon had to listen to me singing along. We got home pretty late, and I have to work tomorrow for the first time in over a week, so that ought to be a shock to my system. But was it worth it? Heck yeah!
Famous Hat
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