Hail to the Ducks

A dark, windy, stormy morning in southeast Nebraska. I picked up Carolyn and Ruth early, then swung by to meet Darlene at her hotel for this “clean-up” day after a great tour. Since my plane left in the early afternoon, we decided to concentrate on areas near Omaha.

The south shore of the Platte River, in Cass County, always seems to get migrants earlier than the north bank, so off we set for Louisville. We weren’t able to relocate yesterday’s Rusty Blackbird, but careful scanning of the emberizid flocks revealed a Field Sparrow, cute as cute can be and a good week ahead of schedule; this bird may occasionally winter in southeast Nebraska, but given that I had visited the site a couple of times this past week and not seen the creature, I’m confident that this was a migrant.

Carolyn hadn’t seen Greater White-fronted Goose yet this spring, so we headed for South Bend, where we had good looks at a couple of small flocks in the corn stubble. I was especially pleased this trip to see so many late waterfowl; most years, the 100 or so birds we saw this morning would have been a respectable total for the entire week this late in the month.

The South Bend sewage ponds were less heavily populated than they had been on my earlier visits, with most of the birds now Northern Shovelers. As we admired them (and Wood Ducks, Cackling and Canada Geese, and courting Blue-winged Teal), it suddenly got very dark, very calm, and then it let loose, a burst of rain followed by a steady hail. The nearest birds to us were shovelers, and it was fascinating to watch them pull their heads onto their shoulders, tilt their bills up like so many outsized alcids, and steam to shore, where they hauled out and waited stolidly for the ice to stop falling. Why did they leave the water?