At the parking lot today (4/21/2011) there is a flock of tree swallows darting about low over the gravel, picking bugs out of the air and the ground. They pay me little attention, but other things have changed in the marsh since my last visit. There are still many migrants stopping over on their journey north, but there are also many animals that have set up firm territories where I am an unwelcome guest. I spend my time in the marsh walking the dredge bank along a long narrow ditch. It is not like a lake or pond where disturbed waterfowl can just swim away and maintain a comfortable distance. As I walk I drive the animals forward until they have no place to go.
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| Lethargic Wood Chuck |
As I walk and listen to the calling leopard frogs I flush a mallard hen who I’m sure is sitting on a nest. I look for the nest for a minute and am unable to find it. While I walk I am also pushing a pair of mallards in front of me, until they finally take flight. They circle and quack at me, and shortly they are joined by a Canada goose who circles and honks. Up ahead are a half dozen blue-wing teal. They are much quieter, but as I push them to where they can no longer swim they begin to peep-whistle to each other excitedly while spinning around in circles. Then one decides he’s had enough, erupts from the water, and the rest instantly join him. The goose and mallards have returned to their territories, but another goose is in the ditch and begins to signal a warning to the others in the marsh. A pair of sandhill cranes flying overhead does the same. With all these warning calls I barely notice the shabby looking woodchuck six feet in front of me. It stands there on its hind legs before walking away. The poor guy looks gaunt after a long hibernation and I have no doubt I could have caught him with my bare hands.
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| DON'T LOOK AT ME! - Canada goose on nest |
This chasing of wildlife repeats itself over and over. I notice three goose nests on muskrat lodges with their dutiful parent spread completely flat, looking like a teenage girl sitting as low as possible in the backseat of her dad’s car as she gets dropped off at the mall. These nests are in easy range of any predator, and if I spot them, any fox, raccoon, or opossum will surely find them. Geese don’t give up their nests easily, though, and any of these predators and opportunists will have a fight on their hands should they have a hankering for goose eggs.
Eventually the ditch and bank dead end and I turn back the way I came. I meet the same woodchuck and all the other birds who exclaim the warning “there is a stranger in our midst.” I meet someone new just before I get to my car, a mink swimming ahead of me as fast as it can before launching out of the water and scurrying into the safety of a burrow. The tree swallows still swoop around me. They appreciate my scaring the midges into taking flight, but everyone else hates me.
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