[wisb] Dodge County -- dusk on the marsh -- and great birds

From: "Carl Schwartz" <cschwartz3@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "Wisconsin Birding Network" <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 23:14:31 -0500

Watching the fiery orange globe set over the Horicon Marsh tonight from Main
Dike Road, my snowbird-wannabe wife observed: "I guess Florida doesn't have
a monopoly on perfect sunsets after all." Well amen to that. But Monday
night on the marsh had more going for it than a brilliant sunset....

I have been asked many times where and when I got hooked on birding in
Wisconsin, and I most often relate it to my personal realization several
decades ago that many of the waders and shorebirds I enjoyed watching during
short winter vacations in Florida could be found back home in Wisconsin all
summer long -- if you knew when and where to look. And on Monday night the
looking was great. Prompted by a few notes earlier in the day on Wisbirdn,
Barbara and I set out from Fox Point after an early supper in the hope of
seeing some of the birds that had been reported. An hour later (around 6:20
p.m.) as we approached the pumphouse along Highway 49 on the north side of
the marsh, we could see several cars pulled over on the gravel (a good sign,
we hoped). Indeed it was, and we soon were being alerted by Jeff Bahls,
photographer Jack Bartholmai and Ty and Ida Baumann to what awaited us: Two
Glossy Ibis and one White-faced Ibis (the latter within 50 feet of the
road), as well as a nearby Black-bellied Plover, three Wilson's Phalaropes,
Lesser and Greater Yellowlegs, and -- far back in the cattails -- a Whooping
Crane! Over my shoulder I heard my first Yellow-headed Blackbird for the
year, while Forster's Terns wheeled overhead in large numbers.

We still had enough time to scoot south to Dike Road in the hope of seeing
the Black-necked Stilts that arrived last weekend. Along Rockvale we spotted
two adult bald eagles sitting in a plowed field as two Great Blue Herons
croaked overhead. The immense cattail expanse south of Dike Road (on state
land) has been burned, allowing at least three pairs of Sandhill Cranes to
stand out in relief.

Out on Dike Road we at first feared that the stilts had moved away from the
area where they were being seen just south and west of the water control
structure, but after scanning for some time I heard their distinctive call
and we were treated to a flyby as two came in from farther west and settled
down along the road where they had been reported earlier. A scan of the
mudflats turned up a single Willet, a Semipalmated Plover, numerous
Yellowlegs, Dunlin, Least Sandpipers and awhat I believe from its posture
and extension was a Baird's Sandpiper. As the light faded, the evening
chorus picked up, with Swamp Sparrows and Soras and Virginia Rails most
vocal. But the occasional Common Yellowthroat would add his
witchity-witchity, the Pied-billed Grebe his cow-cow-cow and the American
Bittern his unka-chunka-unka-chunka-unka-chunka.

With any luck, encores of one sort or another are on tap for some weeks to
come. The weather won't always be perfect, and some birds may move
elsewhere. But other birds will join the pageantry (I missed out on the
Cattle Egret that Ty alerted me to, and Black Terns don't appear to be here
yet), so I will be making more trips to the marsh this spring.... and
summer.....and fall .... and winter. And this weekend, of course is the
Horicon Marsh Bird Festival
http://www.horiconmarshbirdfestival.com/birdfestivalevents.cfm, so that
would be a great place to celebrate International Migratory Bird Day.

And if not there, then how about at the new Forest Beach Migratory Preserve
in Ozaukee County?
http://www.birdcitywisconsin.org/Resources/InternationalMigratoryBirdDay/ForestBeachMigratoryPreserveFlyer.pdf

Carl Schwartz
Fox Point
Milwaukee County

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[wisb] Dodge County -- dusk on the marsh -- and great birds

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