Midwestern Waterfowl

The first full day of spring, and I was up to my knees
in new snow this morning at Gavin’s Point, on the
Missouri River between Nebraska and South Dakota. It’s
a long ways from Omaha, our base of operations for the
next week, but the drake Harlequin Duck reported there
recently was an irresistible lure. And there he was,
feeding and diving along the dam face just as if it
were a stone jetty off Cape Ann. Not often I get a
state bird on visits ‘home’, and this one was a beaut.

Waterfowl diversity was gratifyingly high for this
late in the season, probably as a result of this
week’s blizzard. Common Merganser was the most
abundant duck, but every species expected in early
spring was present in numbers, even the normally
scarce Greater Scaup: I stopped counting at two dozen!
There were scattered Ross’s Geese in the flocks of
Snows, and I enjoyed close looks and listens at
several small flocks of Greater White-fronted Geese,
the classic voice of March nights from my Great Plains
childhood.

I swung back to Bellevue and picked up Ruth and
Carolyn then for a quick check of Lake Manawa, across
the river in Iowa. The lake is covered with divers,
mostly Canvasback and Lesser Scaup, and the recent
celebrity, a Trumpeter Swan, lingers in the protected
waters behind Boy Scout Island. I was even more
excited by my first Franklin’s Gull of the spring,
though, a splendid adult loafing among the American
Coots. White, wet, and cold as it is out there, spring
is on the way!