[wisb] Iowa, Sauk, Grant Counties today
- From: Peter Fissel <pfissel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: Wisconsin Birding Network <wisbirdn@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sat, 09 Feb 2013 21:35:17 -0600
Jim Otto and I believed the weather forecasts that called for "skies becoming
mostly sunny" and went west of Madison today, hoping to spot a Golden Eagle
soaring. The fog, mist and little icy pellets as we drove west were not
exactly promising. After a coffee stop in Mazomanie, we went west on Hudson
Rd. A big murder of Crows in a field caught our attention, as did two smaller
birds out in the same field. While I was setting up the scope, they vanished,
but we did see an Am. Kestrel flying nearby, and that had been my first
impression. Farther west, a Northern Flicker with no tail flew across the road
- we speculated it was either the near-victim of a predator attack, or else had
literally frozen its tail off (i.e., gotten the feathers frozen in place and
lost them in the escape.)
Arena Boat Landing was very quiet, except for a bunch of Canada Geese and a few
Mallards in the creek south of the road. Only other birds of note were a
couple of Song Sparrows on the north side of the big creek. There were a few
Bald Eagles perched along the Wisconsin River on the Sauk Co. side. Bakken's
Pond was quiet (only the main parking lot by the entrance with the Riverway
sign was plowed.)
We cut across the river at Lone Rock and went west on Hwy 133 to Avoca and
Muscoda, then took County G southwest. It was still pretty murky and we hadn't
been seeing many raptors in the air, but a Rough-leg was soaring above the
ridge on Sand Branch Rd., followed by a Bald Eagle. Jim spotted a flock of
small birds flying over and then landing in the cedars on the side of the ridge
(which are loaded with "berries" - actually tiny cones with a fleshy exterior.)
We realized they were Cedar Waxwings, and there were a lot of them. We jumped
out and I grabbed the scope to see if we could find any Bohemians in with them,
but no. There were easily 250 Waxwings, plus a few E. Bluebirds, a couple more
No. Flickers, and a buch of E. Starlings from the nearby farm. We worked the
cedars from a couple spots along the road - I was convinced there had to be
other thrush species in there (Robins, Townsend's Solitaire, maybe a Varied
Thrush?), but we couldn't pull anything else out besides a few Juncos. That
area bears checking - some of the trees have branches that appear blue, they're
so loaded.
Studnicka Rd. had only a Red-tail along it. We came back east to Avoca and
went south on County N, then east on NN. There was house with a nice feeder
setup that had a ton of birds, including FIVE White-crowned Sparrows (two
adults, three immatures.) We were a bit surprised there were no White-throats.
County C was also quiet. We stopped at Arena B.L. again, which was more
active this time. There were E. Bluebirds and Am. Robins along the creek, as
well a surprising Oppossum out and about. Aaron Holschbach came jogging along
just then, so we yakked with him for a while. He said there are often quite a
few Robins along the creek, plus a big flock of Redwinged Blackbirds in the
marsh. He also mentioned sometimes counting 40+ Bald Eagles along the river
from the boat landing, so we drove down there. There were definitely more
eagles than there had been earlier in the day. There also were a few dozen
Common Mergansers on the river. We were trying to get a somewhat accurate
count of the perched eagles when we saw more soaring above the ridge to the
north in Sauk Co. At one point, I had four in view through my scope, when one
banked and I saw well-defined white patches in the centers of the wings, and a
white base to the tail - immature Golden Eagle. I got Jim on the bird.
Interesting to watch the agonistic behavior of two of the Bald Eagles towards
it. It was pretty easy to pick out the Golden just with binoculars or even
naked eye, due to the dihedral of the wings and the different shape.
We were quite pleased to finally get our "target" bird for the day, after we'd
more or less given up hope. As icing on the cake, when I got home from
grocery shopping tonight, I heard an E. Screech Owl trilling in my
neighborhood.
Peter Fissel
Madison, Dane Co.
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