Spring Revisit of Horicon

Last fall we took a trip to the Horicon Marsh in Wisconsin to see the thousands of water fowl who use the marsh as a resting place on their migration south.  We loved everything about that trip -- the scenery, the weather, the birds.  The guide on the boat tour we took advised us to return in the spring.  He assured us that we would see a greater number of birds and more variety.  Many of the birds, he assured us, would be nesting around Mother's Day so we would see baby birds as well as adults.  This past Mother's Day weekend, we took him at his word and headed back to Horicon.

The boat tour in the fall was taken in the early afternoon.  This spring we took the tour at 6:00 pm, early evening.  It was peaceful and serene and one of the rare warm days we've had this spring.  While the cool spring altered the number of birds in the marsh, we were, with the assistance of the tour guide, able to identify 51 different kinds of birds.  Most of them were too small for me to photograph with my lens but believe me when there were lots and lots of birds.  Being smaller than the waterfowl of the fall, they did not dominate the landscape in the same way but the air was full of birdsong of various kinds.

Canadian geese were easy to spot.  We were assured that these geese were born and raised right here in the marsh and have never seen the likes of Canada.  We saw more than one brood enjoying an evening swim.

The sunset was lovely.  Not quite the spectacle of the sunrise this past fall but nonetheless a sight to behold.  Our eyes, however, were always searching for birds so the sunset didn't get much attention.

This is one of four American eagles we saw on this trip.  We were treated to a special show when this guy swooped down to the ground and then flew back to this perch with something in his claws.  At first we thought it might be a muskrat or a beaver but it turned out to be a small duck.  Feathers fell softly to the water as this eagle's evening meal was devoured.

We saw several great blue herons and sandhill cranes before the trip ended.  Birds this large and larger (there are pelicans in the marsh also but we only saw them flying in the distance) seem out of place to me.  I've only really seen them in the zoo.  To see them in a natural setting is one of the satisfactions of coming here.

I believe this is a coot.  We were told that the fact they are coming back to the marsh is a testimony to the job they've done cleaning up the water.

I can't tell you what kind of bird this little guy is but the benefit of going out in the evening is that the birds come in to roost for the night.  We could see the trees filling as our boat tour came to an end.

We were glad to revisit Horicon but we won't come back in the spring again.  Fall is the better time for us.