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Earl Aagaard’s opinions about everything that interests him. Og also enjoys gardening, travel, reading, woodbutchery, and lots of other stuff.

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WELCOMING THE WARBLERS HOME FROM SOUTH AMERICA…...

Recently took the Ornithology class down to DAUPHIN ISLAND, ALABAMA, someplace that anyone interested in birds should see in springtime, at least one time in their lives.

We drove down on Thursday (7 hours from Collegedale), stayed 2 1/2 days and came home on Sunday. This year, like last, the island greeted us with wonderful weather - that means no rain, which is unusual here in the South - but the poor birds had a headwind trying to get from the Yucatan to the States, and our warbler count was less than in 2005. However, we did see a number of warblers, plus a Magnificent Frigatebird, and some other interesting birds. We also experienced something that was just plain jaw-dropping amazing! Fortunately, one of our students had a real nice camera with a great zoom lens, so we have photos, too…....

Read on.

Here’s a warbler - the Black and White:

And here’s the Prothonotary:

My favorite sighting was a fabulous HOODED WARBLER, but Paul Reynolds, the student who took these photos, wasn’t with me, so you’ll have to look at Cornell’s photo.

But, the highlight of the trip - and an experience that the three “veteran” bird-watchers were completely unprepared for - was the 20-30 minutes we spent watching FIVE rails running around on the mudflats at the edge of the marsh by the Dauphin Island airport. As our group of 13 or 14 approached the pond, we saw a SORA RAIL in the shallow water just outside the line of reeds. I was jazzed that our students were going to see this—I shushed them and everyone got their binoculars on this little rail, just as a second sora emerged just down the shore. I was THRILLED!

You have to understand about rails to know why this was such a big deal—they are HIGHLY secretive. In 2005, only three or four of us saw a sora—it was in the same area, and we could hear their calls from various directions out of the marsh, but a few of us JUST HAPPENED to be where we saw one pop out of the reeds and step onto a piece of dead wood in the center of a very muddy “trail” about 15 inches wide. He stood there for about 5 seconds, and then popped into the reeds on the other side. That is exactly how one usually sees rails. The Dept. Chair, a mutual friend who spends a LOT of time outdoors, and I - with perhaps 75 cumulative years watching birds among us - watched rails for more time on this day than ALL of us had seen them in all our previous birdwatching put together. And we’ve only begun the story…...

Next, out of the reeds on the far side of the pond, we saw a Clapper Rail:

I was flabbergasted at our good luck! The two soras were still out and running around off on our right, and across from us was a Clapper Rail….who wandered around the pond to within about 15 feet of us, before it spooked a bit and wandered back around to where it had emerged from the reeds. There was another bird calling from over there, and when the original bird approached, out came the caller and the two of them got “up close and personal”:

At one point, we were watching TWO Clapper Rails and THREE Soras all out on the mud at the same time…..those of us with experience were hyperventilating! After it was all over, I tried to convince my students that going down to a marsh wasn’t going to mean they would see rails every time! In fact, they may never have this particular experience again. I certainly don’t expect to. It was WONDERFUL!

Posted by .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on 04/30 at 11:06 AM

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