[wisb] Columbia ponds and Horicon
- From: starkal@xxxxxxxxxxx
- To: wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Tue, 6 Apr 2010 02:18:26 +0000
Hello all,
After successfully proposing to my girlfriend, Libby Zeman, we decided to take
a day to do some celebratory birding (Thanks Jesse for the suggestion). We
started at a pond south of Goose Pond (I can't remember the road) where we had
Canada, Cackling and Greater White-fronted geese. Other birds present were the
common duck species like shovelers, lesser scaup, bufflehead a single Hooded
Merganser and a dozen Pelicans. A pleasent surprise was our FOY Bonapartes
Gull. Just one bird snuck up behind us while we were scoping the geese.
Our next stop was Goose Pond. Not a lot of action except for an overwhelming
amount of Canada Geese. We did find our Ruddy Ducks for the day here along with
Killdeer.
We then headed over to Harvey Rd for a very fast stop. Like Peter said, a lot
of the pond is drying up which is unfortunate because now I have no idea where
I'll find some of the shorebirds that showed up there last year. The highlight
was finding three Pectoral Sandpipers and two more Bonapartes Gulls.
Our next stop was Dike rd at Horicon Marsh. We ran into Daryl Tessen who gave
some bad news that it was pretty quiet. Oh, and Darly, we never did find that
Greater Yellowlegs...dang! I suppose it might be of mention to say that Libby
and I saw at least 10 Northen Harriers flying over the marsh. After Dike Rd we
made our last stop through the driving tour path. A highlight was when we found
a small flock of Rusty Blackbids about halfway through. We decided to walk to
floating path and it was generally quiet. There were some shovelers, redheads
and lesser scaup. Lots of Tree Swallows were present being very busy going in
and out of the holes in the trees giving some great photo op's. A great find
was that we also found our FOY Barn Swallow. It was at the overlook/shack thing
where there's usually a hundred of them. I'm guessing its pretty early if even
Daryl is surpised.
On our way home we couldn't help but notice the alarming amount of muskrats
dead on hwy 49! What are people thinking!
Good Birding!
Alex Stark and Libby Zeman, Platteville
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- » [wisb] Columbia ponds and Horicon - starkal
