Why did the Canada goose cross the road? To go with the flow. (Photo at Wadsworth Wetlands by Tim Wallace)

As I write this Saturday morning, winter appears to have returned as a reminder that  mid-March around here is not immune from its influence. Temperatures are in the high twenties and the falling snow is accumulating. Fortunately, though, this act of meteorological petulance is not likely to last long, as temperatures will soon rise into the low forties.

But this past week was lovely. (Cindy wonders what the working class ever did to so offend the Great Spirits that they save the nice weather for weekdays.) On Tuesday (March 16) Tim Wallace and I covered Wadsworth again. The piles of snow that blocked the internal roads and the ice that made them difficult to walk were all gone. Jerry Curran, site supervisor, warned us that one portion of the road was under water so we took an alternative route.

Many of the ponds were still frozen but the river was in flood so some of our marshes had morphed into lakes. Places that we cover by foot could only be reached by wading. Anyone who has been in the field with me knows that I am not at all adverse to getting wet, but as I get older the prospects of being waist deep in icy water is just less appealing that it was but a few short years ago.

This week saw more bird activity than last. Ducks were moving around in small flocks and represented a greater range of species. Mallards predominated but we saw a couple groups of pintails. I am very fond of ducks (as a reader of this blog might surmise) for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is that the drakes in alternate plumage tend to be easy to identify. And among the ducks, pintails rank high. They are elegant in  plumage and distinctive in shape. They are also among the less common here and tend to be among the first wave of waterfowl to move through in spring, so unless one is active in March it is possible to miss them. (Another early spring migrant which I have yet to see at Wadsworth in five years of surveys is the greater white-fronted goose.) At another pond, I spotted two black ducks, my first of the season. Three buffleheads nearby were also new year birds.

One section of the survey area is a relatively large and deep lake connected to the Des Plaines River. It used to be a quarry. The lake rarely hosts birds except for one brief period in the spring. That period occurs during the narrow window when it is partially open and partially frozen; and I don’t really know why that is.  Over the years I have found a wide range of diving birds, including common loon (during one year when the ice remained into the beginning of the loons migration period through here), horned grebe, redhead, canvasback, and all three mergansers. On this day, the ice to water ratio was perfect but the birds were limited to a couple of hooded mergansers and a flock of about 25 common mergansers. (Later in the day we made a quick stop at the lakefront where we encountered red-breasted mergansers, thereby seeing half of the world’s merganser species.) When I visit next, the lake will probably be completely open and the hot moment will have passed with few rewards. I have made special efforts in the fall to catch the quarry lake when it is partially frozen but that window is even narrower than in the spring, for I don’t think I have ever quite succeeded.

After completing our birding at Wadsworth, Tim and I made a quick foray to Northpoint Marina on the Lake Michigan shore, just south of the Wisconsin border. An area that is usually rife with ducks was bare- a workman said it’s because of repair work being done on an adjacent pier. We did see common goldeneye, greater scaup, bufflehead, and the aforementioned red-breasted merganser.

And as I pulled into my driveway, I was greeted by the mesmerizing calls of cranes. They were flying high, so it took me a while to find them, but directly overhead 125 circled to the northwest and disappeared. I wonder how they are faring today.

A tad too icy to wade (Wadsworth Wetlands by Tim Wallace)

A slowly thawing pond at dawn (Wadsworth Wetlands by Tim Wallace)

          

Blue-winged teals in flight photographed by Allan Sanders.

The weather has been rather stagnant, with the same stationary air mass hanging overhead for five weeks. Major bird movements have been lacking, particularly along the lake. But that was all going to end with the forecast of a cold front barreling into the region last Sunday night (September 27).

Tim  Hill, a birder in South Bend , posted this statement on the Indiana Birders list serve (IN-BIRD): “The National Weather Service is expecting Sunday night’s event (as of now) to be a concrete damaging wind threat” as “tremendous cold air advection will follow immediately behind the cold front surge and will likely require at least a Wind Advisory inland and a Gale Warning across the Lake.” They are forecasting 52-58 mph upper level winds with the initial surge through the County Warning Area Sunday night and Monday morning, leveling out to sustained winds of 20-35mph with gusts up to 45mph over the next 48 hours.”

Birders were licking their chops. Then a revised projection on Sunday said that these powerful winds would be mostly from the west on Monday, turning to the northwest later Monday and all day Tuesday. Optimal birding at Miller generally favors Northwest winds over those that are predominantly from the West. On the other hand, there is something to be said about the edge of the cold system driving birds in front of it. So the avian flood gates would open on Monday or Tuesday, or both days. Oh, dear god, what is a birder to do? Ken Brock cancelled a dentist’s appointment so he could be out both days. Jeff McCoy birded Sunday and stayed the night so he could be at Miller bright and early. He planned on leaving by 2 so he would be at work for the late shift thereby freeing up Tuesday morning as well. Michael Topp went into work at 4 am on Monday so he could bird the afternoon. When asked why he did not arrange to have the morning free instead, he repl;ied that if the birding was good, it would be too difficult for him to leave. And then there was the saddest case of all, a young man other wise in perfect health who for some years now gets weak and feverish, indeed almost agonal, with the onset of autumn cold fronts. His tragic malady has not been diagnosed but some suggest it might be a rare form of avian flue (perhaps the little known Stercorarius variant). When confronted with a two-weekday front, this courageous wretch prefers to endure the misery of vocational activities  for one of the days, but even one so richly endowed with an iron constitution wilts at the prospect of forgoing succor for the whole duration. Thus, he needed to make a choice and ultimately, for him, the promise of north winds on Tuesday prevailed (although he did call Monday morning for an update, his voice quivering and barely audible, as he struggled manfully to endure his suffering).  As for your blogger, I had made a previous date with my mistress in Lansing, MI for Tuesday and since Tim Wallace was free that day to go along, I couldn’t cancel (you know how those things are, the more the merrier). (I discussed spouse in the last post and I will get to mistress in a future one. Suffice it to say, spouse is reconciled to the relationship.) Monday would be my one shot.

Jeff and I arrived at almost the same time. In the gloaming, he picked out a great black backed gull. Then Ken showed up followed by Brad Baumgarten (naturalist at the Indiana Dunes State Park). Later the Gyllenhaals (dad and two teens from Oak Park, IL) and Michael Topp drove up. The winds were howling, but after the passage of almost seven hours the number o jaegers and Sabine’s gull recorded were the same as the number of frigate birds which is to say no more than all the western grebes. Put a different way, the number of unusual birds seen was zero. Or in the technical terminology used by Ken Brock to describe the day, it was a dud.

A dud to be sure given the expectations, but there was some bird migration. New for the season was a “modest puddle duck flight”, as Ken said of the day. Ducks are among my favorite birds, as they tend to be handsome (some are downright gaudy) and easy to identify. But even these birds can be challenging when seen at extreme distances. One of our first flocks consisted of five larger lighter birds and two smaller darker birds. Jeff and I watched them for awhile, and I suggested mallards for the larger and wood ducks for the smaller. (Having spent numerous summers with wood ducks on small backwaters of the Des Plaines River, I am always startled a bit when I see them far offshore over the roiled waters of Lake Michigan)  Jeff thought that sounded reasonable, but he continued watching and eventually they moved close enough for him to confirm the woodies but nix the mallards- the larger birds were pintails. As the day progressed, it became easier to id some of these birds from farther and farther away. So while its depressing misidentifying such familiar species, conditions provided a great primer on identification based on shape, flight, and indistinct plumage characters. Another lesson is that no matter how well you know a bird, at some level of distance you can not be sure. Other puddle ducks included American wigeon (18), blue-winged teal (163), northern shoveler (17), and mallard (20). We even had two sea ducks- one greater scaup and three lesser scaup. (The scoters can’t be far behind.) Other highlights were a Tundra peregrine falcon (a true migrant and not a local) and four separate golden plovers.

As for Tuesday, the flight was even more modest. Ken noted that day produced a good herring gull migration. By lunch time the watchers had turned their backs on the lake and sought passerines in sheltered areas nearby. But the next big front, boy, that will not be something you want to miss. And don’t let the rest of your life get in the way.

Northern shovelers photographed by Allan Sanders.