The Marsh Project Week #6

Another cold and cloudy day.  Yesterday I'd been out in the area picking up trash (mostly beer cans, bottles, and Styrofoam containers- if you brought it in, you should take it out, or at least put it in the dumpster at the parking lot) with some other volunteers and I hadn't had time to make it out to my spot even though the weather had been perfect.  This morning, the feel of rain was in the air and the weather app on the phone informed me that there was a 100%  chance of rain this afternoon, so it was probably a good idea to get the nature time in early.

 

The birds were chirping and doing their usual "I'm hiding and you can't find me!" tricks, except for a pair of Canada geese, which hung out near the wildlife blind for a few minutes and then flew off, squawking.  After several minutes, I could see a small water bird in the distance but I couldn't tell what it was; there was something silvery and flashy about it.  Finally, it got close enough to where I thought I might be able to see closer with the camera, and what I was looking at was (I think) a pied-billed grebe with a fish.  I got one not-very good shot and then the grebe dove down into the water head-first with its fish treat.  I learned something new today, because I actually hadn't known that grebes eat fish.

All this past week, the temperatures have been really cold, and I'd been hoping to make a very quick trip out to the spot at least once during lunch to see if the marsh had iced over, but the one day that I thought I'd be able to do it, I ended up having to take my car to the mechanic (long story).  However, I did see what looked like some residual ice.  I wasn't about to walk into the water to find out.  Last year around this time, we'd had a spell of freezing weather and when the marsh iced over, I saw several great blue herons walking on the ice.  It was a fun sight, and I'd hoped to see something like that again, but it was not to be.

Downy Woodpecker

Sightings on the trail: Canada goose, pied-billed grebe, mallards, downy woodpecker, least sandpipers, lots and lots of ruby-crowned kinglets, greater yellowlegs, the usual little brown birds, what I think was a hooded merganser but was too far away to tell for sure (but I've seen one there before, so it's possible), great blue herons, American coots, an osprey flying, and a northern flicker.  Plenty of animal tracks and scat, but no actual mammals.