little year

Today was my birthday, and so we made it a day with a trip to Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin. The most vivid memory is going to be all the dead snapping turtles on Rt. 49, the road that runs right through the marsh. Fresh kills, too, in pools of blood. Most of the carcases were on the side of the road, which means the killers are probably birders who aren't paying attention. It's a gravel road, so they probably don't even notice the sickening crunch. Though Pole was kind of freaked out, these senseless deaths bug me in particular because I have a special affinity for turtles. (You see, I keep my innermost self hidden deep inside an emotional shell. Oh, and I have a scaly, reptilian tail.)

Four new birds for Little Year, all of which we saw along the side of the turtle-strewn Rt. 49: a SORA, a SEMIPALMATED SANDPIPER, a PECTORAL SANDPIPER, and a single female YELLOW-HEADED BLACKBIRD. The best sight for me, though, was a Ruddy Duck, which I missed back in March. So now I'm only 11 birds behind Pole. Still sucks.

posted by Scrubb at 05:59 PM | permalink | stuck under LIST + other animals + shorebirds

After another long hiatus, we went out today to find a few local gimmees. According to the lists, there was a Piping Plover at Montrose Beach. It took us a while to find it -- Pole spotted it first -- but we eventually got a very good gander. Unfortunately, we later discovered that we'd already seen it in Texas. Stupid. Fortunately for me, Pole also spotted a Spotted Sandpiper, a bird I missed on our trip to Michigan's Upper Peninsula in June.

A real irritant at Montrose was the presence of three women birders who were strolling inside the protected area. They were well-equipped, serious-looking birders and should have known better. There are signs and fences all over the place, but they just walked right onto the beach. They were too far away to yell at, but I got a vibe that they knew they were behaving badly because they moved off the beach once the binoculared Little Year team showed up. One of them -- dressed in traditional birding garb -- was actually plucking plants from the sand. Pole said maybe she was just picking weeds, but who knows? Maybe they were Park District employees. Maybe they were consultants from the Illinois Ornithological Society. Maybe the plucker was the Widow Frigging Audubon. Or maybe they were just assholes.

We left Montrose and headed south to Jackson Park in search of a local specialty, MONK PARAKEETS. We found them right away. We parked next to the tennis courts where they have their huge nests. No birds were there when we arrived, but after about a minute, a whole squawking flock flew in. I guess they count as an invasive species, but at least they weren't plucking plants.

posted by Scrubb at 08:35 PM | permalink | stuck under LIST