Foggy Bird Tour

Ruddy Turnstone

 I set out for the Wheeler Marsh with about an hour to go before high tide. There is a light south wind and the opposing current is minor being in the last hour of the flood.  It is foggy with some mist and the visibility is about a 1/4 mile.  

When I get to the top of the marsh I head in on a narrow channel that, if I remember right, cuts off the NE corner.  I spot a couple Swans, some Geese and a few goslings.  Ahead, in the fog is a white spot that is just at the right height to be the tuft on the arctic cotton plant.  Of course, we don't have arctic cotton here.  It resolves into the head of a Yellow Crowned Night Heron.  I spot several more of them as I continue. The sound of large wings is over my shoulder...I look up and a mature Bald Eagle overtakes me.  It looks for a perch, then aborts and circles back to someplace behind me. 

Semipalmated Sandpipers

The lower marsh is shallow, but with the spartina only 8-10 inches high, the area is flooded and it takes on the appearance of one of the shallow marsh lakes that I remember from Minnesota. The point is a long sand bar and a good place to spot shorebirds.  It works out as I find a some beautiful Ruddy Turnstones and Black Bellied Plovers.  There are also several Semipalmated Sandpipers.  All of these birds are migrating north.

Ruddy Turnstone and Black Bellied Plovers

With that, I head straight into the center of the marsh for the simple reason that the very high tide allows me to go anywhere.  There are about thirty Swans in the upper end of the marsh, which has more "land" than lower down.  The Swan nest near the phragmites is still occupied.  Then, with a few zigs and zags, I'm back in the big river and head up against the very beginnings of the ebb flow.