Oh suns and skies and clouds of June

And all June’s flowers together,

Ye cannot rival for one hour

October’s bright blue weather!

 

This verse from a poem by Helen Hunt Jackson aptly describes Saturday, October 15, when five of us went to Swan Lake National Wildlife Refuge for a birding trip.  Swan Lake is in northwest Chariton County and a good two hour drive from Jefferson City. 

      Jim Nordstrom, Rich George, Roger and Anita Randolph and I identified 44 species of birds on this trip,  and had a wonderful time doing it.  Swan Lake itself was quite low and looked more like a marsh.  There were no birds close by at our first stop, but when we used our binoculars we saw thousands of birds way out in the marsh.  They were visible to us when they flew up, circled around and landed again. 

      There were many groups of ducks (mostly blue wing teal, as far as we could tell) starting up, flying right, flying left, settling again, all in constant motion like on huge aerial ballet directed by Mother Nature herself!  It was simply lovely.  We also saw a northern harrier hawk and two eagles from this vantage point. 

      Then we drove south of the lake, stopped by the visitor’s center and took a little path that led through wooded and grassy areas where we saw

woodpeckers, sparrows and even a warbler.  Probably our best “finds” were a Harris’ sparrow and a Nashville warbler. 

      We drove on around to Silver Lake (which looked like a lake!) and found  coots near the shore and various other water birds in the middle.  We identified some, but there could easily have been others we missed.  We ate lunch in Brunswick then crossed the Missouri River to Van Meter State Park, because it was just too beautiful day to go home yet.  Anita called it a “golden day”…warm and sunny and crisp with trees starting to change color. 

      We walked the boardwalk but were disappointed (at least I was) that there was no standing water in the wetland.  We did find some more birds…most notably, a small flock of cedar waxwings way, way up in the huge cottonwood trees.  

- Anne Peery

 

 44 Species Identified

Flicker, Canada goose, American crow, American kestrel, great blue heron. horned lark, meadowlark, redwing blackbird, starling, red-tailed hawk, blue jay, bald eagles, blue-winged teal (thousands), northern pintail duck, red-bellied woodpecker, mallard duck, northern harrier (female), goldfinch, dark-eyed junco, white throated sparrow (bunches), downy woodpecker, red-headed woodpecker, cardinal, Harris’ sparrow, fox sparrow, Nashville warbler, swamp sparrow, chipping sparrow, song sparrow, tree swallow, gadwall duck, American coot, northern shoveler duck, green-winged teal, Forester’s tern, Bonaparte’s gull, turkey vulture, kingfisher, yellow rumped warbler, cedar waxwing, ruby crowned kinglet (female or immature), rock dove, mourning dove, crested nuthatch