Pied-billed grebe photographed by John Cassady.
It has been a couple of months or more since I wrote anything about the Wadsworth Wetlands. The spring surveys were completed towards the end of April. The breeding bird surveys started in late May and I have two more visits (out of a total of six) before they are history. A pair of red-tailed hawks set up a nest in a row of trees that I had to visit frequently. I never did get used to their sharp calls, but it was good to know they were keeping track. At least one of the birds is still present, but I have not seen any sign of youngsters which is sad. And although there are certainly cranes in the vicinity, I have not seen any indications of a nest or young.
On two of the last three spring visits I had unusual interactions with that strangest of all organisms, Homo sapiens. The first was rather unnerving. There are a series of trails that run through the wetland grounds. Trails now days, of course, are not like the trails most of us grew up with. These trails accommodate cars, although only those on official business can use them. That includes me, and I routinely drive to my sites within the larger wetland property. Occasionally, bicyclers will yell at me for driving, and police stop me for an explanation. I am very careful and to make sure there are no accidents, when I see someone biking or running towards me, I will pull over and wait for them to pass. On this particular day a young woman was running towards me, but when I pulled over to the side and motioned for her to pass, she stopped and began running down the road away from me. This was not good because I had to go down the same route and as I approached her she headed as fast as she could off the road through thick vegetation. When I was some distance away, she came back to the road and was making a call on her phone. I assumed she was calling the police, which would have been ok so long as she did not claim I did something which I had not. But no police ever showed and that was the end of it. I do wonder what in her experience would have left her so easily spooked. And would she have felt more secure had the person approaching her been on foot?
The next week I was scoping a pond next to the same path when another young woman comes by. This time, she kind of preens coquettishly and jokingly asked if I was looking at her. That too was unlike any comment I have heard since I began birding but I will take goofy over fearful anytime. I thanked her for her friendliness, and explained the very different reaction manifested by the other gal. She thought it was odd too.
The breeding surveys have not been overly interesting from a wetland bird perspective. (And from the first survey at the end of May the mosquitoes were awful. They are only now beginning to thin out.) Wadsworth years ago hosted yellow-headed blackbirds and moorhens, but more recently the best we have had has been a least bittern and a few Virginia rails laer in the season after floods forced them out of wherever they had been. There are nice populations of marsh wrens at several of the marshes, a few swamp sparrows in the exact place we get them every year, and a sedge wren in its usual spot. The route also traverses some nice woods and there have been two wood thrushes in one stretch, plus scattered red-eyed vireos, yellow-throated vireos, and rose-breasted grosbeaks. In open areas with scattered trees there are one or two orchard orioles. By far our best bird has been a white-eyed vireo in a shrubby area in between two sites we do cover. Andy Sigler, who is helping me on these, heard it as we drove slowly by.
But this most recent visit did yield a surprising marsh bird, although I am amazed we had not seen it on any of our previous three visits. There in the biggest pond right by the parking lot were three swimming chicks of something or other. A moment later an adult pied-billed grebe popped up in their midst. That is the first confirmed nesting of that species since I have been doing the surveys here. And that explains the whole point of the surveys- why we need to keep looking.
White-eyed vireo photographed by John Cassady.
