11/11/11 Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge

Dew drops decorate a spider web on the floating boardwalk, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

Today I'll post more images from my early October visit to the Horicon Marsh national Wildlife Refuge in southern Wisconsin. I didn't plan this, but there are actually there are 11 images on this day of 11/11/11.

I was chasing a Palm Warbler on the floating boardwalk, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

The same Palm Warbler was playing a game of tight rope, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

Dunking Ducks, all Mallards; you can see the size differences between the Mallards and the smaller female Blue-winged Teal swimming next to them, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

A female Northern Shoveler, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011. 

Pied-billed Grebe,Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

A Savannah Sparrow, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

White-throated Sparrow, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

Yellow-rumped "Myrtle" Warbler, Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

A BIF of the same Yellow-rumped Myrtle. I was amazed that I was able to get a sharp image of this warbler in flight while behind the grass blades.

A painted Turtle in the Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, WI; 10/2/2011.

Cliff Swallows and more from Spring Green, WI

Barn and farmland from Taliesin, Frank Lloyd Wright's home property in Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

Val and I visit Spring Green every summer to see plays from the wonderful outdoor theatre, American Players Theatre ( http://americanplayers.org/ ). This summer we decided to make a long weekend of our visit when we saw three plays in three consecutive evenings. During the day, we visited many attractions in the area: Tower Hill State Park, House on the Rock, Taliesin ( http://www.taliesinpreservation.org/visitors-guide home of and Architect School founded by Frank Lloyd Wright ), and try to get some birding in to boot. It is a beautiful part of Wisconsin, complete with rolling hills, farmland, stone cliffs, woodland, parks, and quaint towns.

A BIF of a Cliff Swallow, Wisconsin River near Helena Marsh, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

Between birding in Tower Hill State park, Helena marsh, and the grounds of Taliesin and the Spring Valley Hotel (which is a great little hotel in a beautiful rural setting not far from the American Players Theatre), I managed a few decent photos. Among the birds I was able to identify were Chipping Sparrows, Song Sparrows, House Sparrows, Northern Rough-winged Swallows, Mourning Doves, House Wren, Cardinals, Blue Jays, Cliff Swallows (Above), Barn Swallows, Baltimore Orioles, Gray Catbirds, Rose-breasted Grosbeak, Eastern Phoebe, Eastern Wood Peewee, American Robins, Crows, Goldfinches, Chickadees, Ruby-throated Hummingbirds, White-breasted Nuthatches, and a Great Blue Heron.

A juvenile Cliff Swallow, Helena Marsh, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

Another Cliff Swallow, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

A Northern Leopard Frog, Helena Marsh, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

Beautiful summer colors in Helena Marsh, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

I am not sure what the sign submerged in the water said , but what is visible is " ... --- Carefully In --- Zones..." Wouldn't it be ironic if it said "Drive carefully In Flood Zones." Helena Marsh, WI; 7/1/2011.

As I was searching out birds Helena Marsh near the Wisconsin River shoreline, I noticed a sign lying in some shallow water off the side of the gravel road we were on. I couldn't quite make out what the sign said, but it seemed like a possible interesting story. I looked further for a submerged automobile, but couldn't find one - maybe it was underneath the sign.

A young Mourning Dove on the trail in Tower Hill State Park, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

While hiking in Tower Hill State Park, near Spring Green, we saw a flightless bird (Above) trying to escape to safety when we almost stepped on it on the trail. I wasn't sure immediately what it was, but after some research, concluded it was a young Mourning Dove that either fell out of its nest or made its initial flight out of the nest but wasn't strong enough to go any further. There was a 100 foot cliff next to the trail that was the most likely origin of its nest  I hope it learns to fly quickly otherwise it will surely become a meal for a local fox or badger.

More wildlife from Helena Marsh, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

A Chipping Sparrow, on the grounds of Spring Valley Hotel, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

A Song Sparrow on the Taliesin grounds, Spring Green, WI; 7/1/2011.

Purple Martin

A Purple Martin hanging around their summer home in the Horicon Marsh NWR, WI; 5/29/10.

Although the Purple Martin was no longer present at the Horicon Marsh Wildlife Refuge in my October visit, it was very abundant there when I visited last May.  At the Visitors center and at the Headquarters of the State run section of the Horicon Marsh Refuge in Wisconsin, there are several Purple Martin Houses on poles that attracted an abundant of resident Purple Martins. Purple Martins are a member of the swallow family but are a bit larger at 8" long compared to 5"-6" length of other swallows. The adult male (Above) has a dark bluish - purplish back, head and belly with brownish-black wing tips and tails. They almost exclusively reside in man-made housing complexes, much like miniature apartment buildings (Below).

Purple Martins roosting in their "Apartments" at the State of Wisconsin Horicon Marsh State Wildlife Refuge; 5/29/10.

Female Purple Martins (Below) have a lighter underside appearing almost yellowish in contrast to their male counterparts.

A female Purple Martin in flight, Horicon Marsh Wildlife Refuge, Wisconsin; 5/29/10.

A close up look at the Purple Martin's deep blue feathers; Horicon Marsh Wildlife Refuge, WI; 5/29/10.

Sparrows of the Horicon Marsh NWR

I identified four types of sparrows at the Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge: Savannah Sparrow, White-crowned Sparrow, American Tree Sparrow and Song Sparrow. Of these four only one (Savannah Sparrow Below) is hanging around in its summer range before migrating south to its winter range from the southern tip of Illinois to the Gulf Coast.

A Savannah Sparrow still hanging around Horicon Marsh, WI,  before migrating south; 10/16/10

Another Sparrow (Song Sparrow, Below) is one of the few sparrows who call Southern Wisconsin and Illinois home year round.

The Song Sparrow stays in Southern Wisconsin and Illinois year round; 10/16/10.

The White-crowned Sparrow (Below top) and American Tree Sparrow (Below, Bottom) spends its summers in the very far north of Canada and throughout Alaska. These guys call the Horicon Marsh area and Illinois their winter home.  The White-crowned is at its northern most edge of its winter range and will fly south as far as the Gulf Coast.

A White-crowned Sparrow in its northern edge of its winter range, Horicon Marsh NWR; 10/16/10.

The Horicon Marsh, Wisconsin, and northern Illinois is a typical winter home for the American Tree Sparrow; 10/16/10.

It's interesting how four different species of Sparrows overlap their ranges during their fall migration.

Kildeer, Great Egret, Pied-billed Gebe, Sandhill Crane

Here are some more photos of shorebirds and wading birds from our Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge excursion near Horicon, Wisconsin...

A Kildeer at Horicon Marsh Wildlife National Refuge.



Two photos of a Great Egret at the Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge; 10/16/10.



Pied-billed Grebe at Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge; 10/16/10

Sandhill Cranes flying overhead through the trees; 10/16/10.

Lesser Yellowlegs

A Lesser Yellowlegs wading around one of the many miles of shoreline in the Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Horicon, Wisconsin; 10/16/10.

There were two more birds that I added to my Life List as we hiked in the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge a couple of weeks ago: The Lesser Yellowlegs (Above and Below) and the Green-winged Teal of which I didn't get very good photographs.
The Yellowlegs is another bird that is in the middle of its southward migration. In the summer it resides in the northern half of Canada and throughout most of Alaska, but seems to stay south of the Arctic Circle. In the winter it will fly all the way to the South Atlantic Coast along the Carolinas, Georgia, Florida and along the entite Gulf Coast and also in the West in the Baja Peninsula and south into Mexico. They grow to be about 10.5" tall and prefer to wade in shallower and more grassy sites. There is also A Greater Yellowlegs which is about 3" taller and has a much longer bill.

A Lesser Yellowlegs, Horicon Marsh NWR, Horicon, Wisconsin; 10/16/10.



Tundra Swans



Tundra Swans enjoying a swim at Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge, Horicon, Wisconsin; 10/16/10.

 We decided to drive a three mile Nature Loop that was at the northern end of the Horicon National Wildlife Refuge to see what we could see. At our very first pull out, there was an overlook with a view of a small section of the marsh where there were several dozen waterfowl swimming. Among these were three beatiful Swans, which I at first thought were Trumpeter Swans, but turned out to be Tundra Swans- what luck! I have never seen a Tundra Swan before. They were undoubtedly taking a rest stop in the Marsh while migrating from their summer home in the Arctic Circle - the Northern reaches of Alaska and Canada - to their winter homes on both the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. Tundra Swans will grow to about 52" tall with a wingspan of five and a half feet.  As more people stopped to see what we were looking at, the Swans must have sensed too many humans around and suddenly took to flight. Val photographed them on their take off. See the link below to her Photo blog for 10/18/10:
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And I took several shots of them in flight (See below) as they cicled over head and out of sight. We were fortunate enough to get there before they flew away.


Tundra Swans in flight, Horicon National Wildlife Refuge, Horicon, Wisconsin; 10/16/10.



Great Egret

Another tall wading bird that I saw last weekend, on my trip out on the Mississippi River, is the Great Egret (also posted pics of the Great Egret on my  6-13-10 post).  Great Egrets will spend its summers along the Mississippi River in large numbers. They usually are solitary bird, but where prey is abundant, they will gather in large numbers. I saw many nesting on "Bird Island" (8-10-10 Post). This would conclude that the Mississippi has an abundant of snakes, frogs, fish and crayfish - its favorite foods.  In the photo (Below, 8-7-10), is a Great Egret ready to land in the reeds along the Illinois side of the Mississippi River.

The Great Egret's combination of a yellow bill and black legs is unique among egrets and herons.

A Great Egret fishing at Horicon Marsh National Wildlife refuge in Southern Wisconsin (5-29-10)

Double-crested Comorant

When a friend of mine gave me tour of the Mississippi River (Near Palisades State Park) on his boat last weekend, the number of Double-crested Comorants that I saw on "Bird Island" was astounding. On Tuesday, 8-10, I posted a picture of some trees on "Bird Island" with it seems like hundreds of Comorants nesting. We couldn't get close enough to the island to get a good close-up of the Comorants, but below is a photo of a Comorant that I accidently flushed out of the reeds while hiking around a section of Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge in Southern Wisconsin.

Double-crested Comorant in flight at Horicon Marsh National Wildlife Refuge (5-29-10)

On the far right of the photo (Above, 8-7-10, Mississippi River), a Double-crested Comorant has its wings spread to dry.

In the photo (Above, 8-7-10) you can see a few Comorants with this flock of American White Pelicans on a sandbar in the Mississippi River. Comorants will grow to almost 3 feet tall with a 5' wingspan and you can see how small they are in comparison to the Pelicans. This species of Comorant is the only type that you will find inland away from the Atlantic, Pacific or Gulf coasts.

The Double-crested Cormorant swims low in the water, often with just its neck and head visible, and dives for its food from the surface. It uses its feet for propulsion and is able to dive to a depth of 2 -10 feet for up to 30–70 seconds. When it resurfaces, it spends long periods standing with its wings outstretched (Above, 8-7-10) to allow them to dry, since they are not fully waterproofed. This species flies low over the water, with its bill tilted slightly upward, sometimes leaving the colony in long, single-file lines (Below, 8-7-10, Mississippi River). 

Double-crested Comorants flying in single-file (8-7-10, Mississippi River)

Wattled Crane

The last of the Cranes we saw at the International Crane Foundation (ICF) in Baraboo, Wisconsin, was the Wattled Crane (Above and Below, 7-31-10) - obviously named for its white and red wattle hanging below its beak.  This was one of the easier Cranes to photo because of its extensive outdoor habitat that included lots of prairie grass and a large marsh that was very open and visible to the observer and made for a great background environment.

Standing up to 6' tall, the Wattled Crane occurs in eleven sub-Saharan countries in Africa, including an isolated population in the highlands of Ethiopia. More than half of the world's Wattled Cranes occur in Zambia. The single largest concentration occurs in the Okavango Delta of Botswana. Wattled Cranes are thought to have historically ranged over a much larger area including coastal West Africa.

Grey-crowned Crane

A very beautiful Crane (that we also saw at the Atlanta Zoo earlier this summer) is the Grey Crowned Crane (Above, 7-31-10, International Crane Foundation, Baraboo, WI), which is the National Bird of Uganda. It was fun to watch and photo this species because of its golden crown (I would have named it the 'Golden-crowned Grey Crane, if you ask me) and especially how it glowed in the late afternoon sunlight. This bird was in a large enclosure, but it was very sociable, as it wanted to come up to the cyclone fence enclosure to meet us. I wanted it to stay back in its grassy habitat for a better picture. It was a challenge to get good photos without a fence obstructing it. In the closeup photo (Below, 7-31-10) you can see the red gular sack on its throat, which they inflate then push the air out to create a booming call.

The range of the Grey Crowned Crane in eastern and southern Africa stretches from eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, Uganda, and Kenya to southeastern South Africa. They are non-migratory, but undertake variable local and seasonal movements, and are most abundant in Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania. Another subspecies occurs in Angola, Namibia, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and South Africa. The East African subspecies occurs in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Burundi, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo, northern Zimbabwe, and northern Mozambique, and comprises the majority of the total population.

White-naped Crane

White-naped Cranes (Below, 7-31-10) are another interesting Crane species we saw at the International Crane Foundation in Baraboo, WI. They have a very striking appearance with a dark gray body and dark gray stripe up the side of a white neck and nape. A reddish face with a gray patch on the ear also serve to identify this species. Males and females are virtually indistinguishable, although in breeding pairs males tend to be slightly larger in size than females, which grow to about 4' tall.
White-naped Cranes in the wild breed in northeastern Mongolia, northeastern China, and adjacent areas of southeastern Russia, and migrate south through China to wintering at wetlands in the middle Yangtze River valley. An interesting tidbit is approximately 2,000 birds in the eastern portion of the breeding range migrate through the Korean peninsula and several hundred remain on wintering grounds in the Demilitarized Zone between North and South Korea. The remainder continues on to the Japanese island of Kyushu where they rely heavily upon an artificial feeding station.

Siberian Crane

The photo of the Siberian Crane (Below, 7-31-10), I took at International Crane Foundation (ICF) in Baraboo, WI,  is of an endangered species. The Siberain Crane can now only be found in two wild populations, in eastern and western Siberia . A central population of Siberian Cranes once nested in western Siberia and migrated to India for their winter grounds. The last documented sighting of Siberian Cranes in India was in 2002, and reports say there is a high probability this population has been recently exterminated. All but a few existing birds in the wild belong to the eastern population, which breed in northeastern Siberia and winter in China. The western population winters at a single site along the south coast of the Caspian Sea in Iran and breeds in the Ural Mountains in Russia.
The traditional migratory and wintering habitats of Siberian Cranes are under constant pressure from the demands of the growing human population. The eastern population are at risk from a loss of wetland habitat: agricultural development, wetland drainage, oil exploration, and water development projects. whereas, the western population is primarily threatened by hunting
Realizing the threats to Siberian Cranes in the wild, a top priority for ICF was to establish the species in captivity. In 1977 and 1978, under the US-USSR Environment Agreement, ICF, the US Fish and Wildlife Service and Russian counterparts orchestrated the export of hatching eggs from Russia. Seven eggs were transported 10,000 miles from the nests of wild cranes to incubators in Wisconsin. All hatched and three pairs were reared. Concurrently, ICF helped Russian colleagues establish a captive breeding center for Siberian Cranes at the Oka Nature Reserve near Moscow. Today there are several hundred Siberian Cranes in captivity at special facilities in Belgium, China, Russia and the USA.