The Daily Bucket is a regular feature of the Backyard Science group. It is a place to note any observations you have made of the world around you. Rain, sun, wind...insects, birds, flowers...meteorites, rocks...seasonal changes...all are worthy additions to the bucket. Please let us know what is going on around you in a comment. Include, as close as is comfortable for you, where you are located. Each note is a record that we can refer to in the future as we try to understand the patterns that are quietly unwinding around us.
February 11, 2015
Pacific Northwest
The mellow hooting of Trumpeter Swans has been absent from the marsh near my house for weeks now. February is too early for them to be migrating back north. Where did the swans go? A few days ago I ran into someone I know bicycling by, stopped to chat, and in the course of our conversation heard she'd seen a mass of swans through the trees a couple of miles away.
Through the trees was an understatement. From the road there, the brush surrounding the marshy area is quite impenetrable, and the water starts where the brush ends. I could see tantalizing white specks of swans through the wall of thorny vegetation, but even standing on the tailgate of my truck I couldn't see well enough to count how many. Quite a few though, and some gray juveniles too.
I love the Trumpeter Swans who winter in my neighborhood, their elegant stately beauty and soft pure hooting. How to get a better look at them, in this hidden marsh?
(All photos by me. In Lightbox...click to enlarge)
Scouting through maps of the area, I discovered a trail branching off a route I've walked before that takes you up to a dramatic lookout. From the map the branch wandered off in the general direction of the marsh, coming at it from the opposite side. On this rare dry (if cloudy and dark) afternoon, we strode off to find this marsh.
The path took us downhill into acres of sword ferns, then mosses and rushes, under an Alder/Redcedar/Fir canopy. Chorus frogs on all sides announced wetland. A squirrel scolded us as we passed by. I heard an eagle calling above but like the rest of the wildlife, couldn't see it. After a while the ground became soggy and the sky opened up to marshland, plants mostly dormant brown in late winter, but noisy with animal activity on this February day. Lots and lots of Red-winged Blackbirds chirped and sang....spring! I looked and looked but couldn't see them, except for a few up on the tall snag.
A Nuthatch's intermittent yank yank cut through the blackbirds' concert. Other forest birds, Kinglets and Robins among them, added to the chorus. The surface of the closest pond looked empty, since our blundering down the path sent the few Ringneck and Bufflehead ducks flying away, as well as a Great Blue Heron. A pair of Canada geese remained:
Last year's cattails and grasses edged the pond. Is this an old nest, attached to the cattails? Blackbird or Marsh Wren perhaps? It may be more visible in the reflection.
Stood quietly by the marsh, watching and listening. Cattle in a distant field, the school bus trundling along the road beyond the wall of brush that had blocked me earlier.
The water surface at my feet began wiggling. Closeup, I saw hundreds of Water Striders! - alternately still or darting between old and fresh Cattail leaves, Duckweed, and Water Parsley. Gnats and spiders too. Tiny disturbances from below suggest maybe the Newt larvae are at work. This is a lot of activity for February but as we talked about in yesterday's Bucket, it has been exceptionally warm in the Northwest this winter. Cold-blooded creatures are waking up.
The flitting of Water Striders looked much like raindrops falling among the sedges:
It wasn't raining just then, but it has been exceptionally wet lately. This wetland is full up. You don't usually see Skunk Cabbage leaves half immersed like they are here:
But what about the swans? None in this pond, and after bushwacking around to the main part of the marsh (path underwater), none up there either. We tried the other direction, and through a flooded opening to the next pond over, yes! White forms glowed in the brown and gray of the day. There were just a dozen, and no juveniles. The bigger group had moved on.
Ringneck ducks were far more numerous. I really enjoy seeing the Ringnecks, one duck I never see in the saltwater bays I frequent.
The road is between the green pasture and the wall of brush beyond the marsh. It would be so much quicker from there, but walking all the way around through the forest, it makes the marsh more hidden, and safer for the waterfowl. Could be that's why they come here rather than the more accessible marsh across the road from my house.
Wet and warm and overcast in the maritime Pacific Northwest today. What about your part of the country? I hear there's blizzard weather in the East. What kind of nature activity are you all seeing today?
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