|
FLASHBACK COLUMN:
|
|
That July evening, in the company of good friends, will always stand out for me, as will several other dates, such as April 20, 2005, when I visited the marsh with Fred Lesher of La Crosse and Carol Schumacher of Winona, expert birders, both of whom have greatly enriched my experience in the field. We call ourselves the “Birders without Borders” because we frequently explore parts of three states-Minnesota, Iowa, and Wisconsin. At the marsh, we saw an Osprey soaring overhead, Pied-billed Grebes diving and reappearing in unexpected places, a few shorebirds and ducks, and a variety of passerines. But best of all was the discovery of a western species that rarely appears east of the Dakotas. On an island, we noticed a heronlike bird with glossy chestnut and greenish feathers and a long, decurved bill. I had never seen this species, but Carol and Fred knew immediately that it was an ibis. The white border around its face meant that the bird was a White-faced Ibis in breeding plumage. Nonbreeding birds do not have this marking and are almost impossible to distinguish from the Glossy Ibis, the only other North American species of the Plegadis genus. Other than probing into the surrounding mud with its long bill, the bird moved little in the half-hour that we watched it.
Another notable trip to the marsh was with my husband a few months later, on July 1. Among the first birds we saw were two Trumpeter Swans that had been released by the Iowa DNR. Later, while we were watching a Wood Duck mom with ten babies in tow and Tree Swallows feeding four fledglings, two small birds flew past us, flashing buffy wing coverts, and landed in the vegetation at the edge of a pond, where they stood motionless with bills pointed straight up. I had just been writing about the American Bittern so I knew about its camouflaging technique of standing like a statue, with its bill pointed up, making its vertical stripes blend with tall wetland grasses. The birds we were seeing looked like miniature American Bitterns. They had to be Least Bitterns, one of the smallest herons worldwide and a life bird for us, the second lifer for me at Cardinal Marsh.
In August of the same year, when Dana was spending a few weeks in Lanesboro to paint birds for our new book, he took time out for one of our traditional trips to Iowa to meet Dennis, Tex, and Mary for dinner. Although Dennis couldn’t join us at the marsh that evening, he said the bitterns that Art and I had seen in July had nested there and we should look for them again. We should also look for the Common Moorhen that was in residence. We found the bitterns, but sadly no moorhen, which would have been a life bird for me.
|
