This week on the marsh

Last night, I took advantage of the ever-increasing amount of daylight remaining when I get home from work and took a walk on the marsh. I got another picture from up high near the road of some ducks, including American Wigeon and Northern Pintail (though I don't think there are any wigeons in this pic): I decided I would get closer to the Long Pond, and if I scared away the ducks, I would just camp out there and wait for them to return. Well, sure enough, just as I saw some Wood Ducks swimming around, I scared them away and then it was pretty much a mass freak-out as ducks everywhere scurried from my fearsome presence:

help!

omigosh!

please don't eat us!

Um—sorry ’bout that... And while some ducks did return, they never returned to the area near where I sat down with my scope and camera, all set to take some award-winning photos. Instead, they flew over me and scowled, thinking, “Get out of here!” I think what I need to do is take some sort of portable blind with me out there, and then I could just sit inside and wait for the ducks to come back. They're too smart to come anywhere near someone watching them while holding a big black tube. They're no dummies.So I got up and saw a sparrow and, as I was watching it for ID purposes, I heard what sounded like a small plane buzzing about two feet over my head! I was just about ready to hit the dirt when I realized it was two mallards, giving me the business! I felt a little like this:

Run, Cary!

At one point, though, I think I might have heard a Common Snipe, but there were so many RWBLs all around, and all of them were being very vocal and telling me to leave their area right now!, that it was hard to tell what all I was hearing. I also heard what sounded like a baby’s “waaah,” coming from a densely brushy area (damn that purple loosestrife!). I couldn’t see what was making the noise. This morning, I went to What Bird? and listened to the sounds made by all the likely marsh birds I could think of (Virginia Rail, Sora, Snipe, Woodcock) just to make absolutely sure, but I didn’t hear anything like the waaah noise. Any guesses?

I did, however, see a real cat on the marsh:

He was stalking around toward the Long Pond when he saw me and then just sat there, staring at me, while I stared back at him. And just look at those evil eyes, staring at me and burning into my soul! Right after I took this photo, he decided he’d had enough and ran the other way. I’ve never seen this kitteh anywhere around the marsh before; I wonder where he came from.

I also heard (drumroll please) SPRING PEEPERS! Now I know it’s spring! They started up by the time I got back home.

Some other things I saw:
Mr. Cardinal, calling for Mrs. Cardinal. Loudly.

This may well be the best picture I've ever taken of a RWBL:I lightened this up a bit so that you could see that this RWBL is doing his “oh-ka-lee” (or as Earl Cootie would say, his “Jim Cav-ieeeeee-zel!”) thing here.

These two muskrats were doing some sort of mating ritual where they swam in unison, like a pair of ice skaters, always about a foot apart, all around the Long Pond:

“Looks like muskrat luhuhuh-uh-uv!”

This was right around the time those two crazy ducks buzzed me, and I figured it was time to leave! The rest of the pics were taken on the walk back to my house.

Another RWBL, in the sunset (red wings in the sunset, way out on the sea...):
Some rather strange scat here; you can see it’s almost like a bunch of really black grapes, pressed together in a big lump. It was probably two inches across. Any guesses?

One bunny’s very bad day:I thought I’d found an owl pellet right next to this, but I think it was just some old cat poo. Dangit... and gross.

This egg has been here since the last time I was on the marsh (3/9/08 – I forgot to report it here), and since then it’s snowed and been really cold: It’s right near my garden, just on the marsh side of the fence. It’s about the size of a chicken egg, and it doesn’t look like anything’s been brooding on it. Why is it here? What bird would lay an egg under the grass like this and then just leave it? We don’t have any chickens anywhere around the marsh, but it’s perfectly white and chicken-sized. Maybe it’s some other animal’s egg? (Platypus???) I didn’t touch it, just in case maybe someone has been tending it, but it’s a mystery egg for now.