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This, the second year of
a hopefully annual event, Ann (AJ) Johnson, my wife Kate and I headed to
Clinton, Iowa. AJ lives in Des Moines, we live in Chicago so we were
trying to split the difference. AJ asked around among Iowa birders
about a good big sit spot along the Mississippi and the consensus was Eagle
Point Park, north of Clinton, Iowa.
OK, for those of you with
maps. Find Iowa. Now find Illinois. You'll notice that
Iowa is to the left of Illinois. The two provinces are split by a
small river locally known as the Mississippi (ah, did it right the first
time, spell checker didn't wince).
Now find Dubuque. Great,
you're not there yet. Now go south from there. If you get to
the Quad Cities, you've gone to far. Back up. Find Clinton
which is between those two fine metropolitan areas. Now, go
about 3 miles north of Clinton to where you'll find a severe widening in
the Mississippi, just above Lock and Dam no. 13. I'm going to hazard
a guess that the dam had something to do with the river getting wider there.
Anyway, Eagle Point Park
is on the bluffs overlooking this pool. AJ did some excellent scouting
on Saturday and found the overlook, pinned down a few birds and figured
out where to put the circle. Sunday morning, we pulled up, set up
and started birding. We won't even begin to discuss the Karoeke bar
the night before or the transmission problems that Kate and I had in the
morning that kept me from my binoculars and scope.
The view was spectacular.
We had clear skies and a wonderful view of the river. And there was
lots of waterfowl. Unfortunately, it was almost all Coots, Canvasbacks
and Ruddy Ducks, but we did manage to find a couple of Redheads, Wigeon,
Gadwall, Snow and Canada Geese, Ring-necked Duck, Mallards, Cormorants
and Pied-billed Grebe. AJ pointed out the allegedly pinned
down Am. White Pelicans, but they were little white spots at 60 power,
so we took her word for it. We were able to "confirm" her sighting
later in the morning.
Ring-billed, Herring and
Franklin's Gulls turned up as well, in the first few minutes.
Up on the bluff, we were
lucky to have some brush below us on the overlook...probably to slow down
the descent of any birders that fall off the overlook as they're trying
to get the right angle on the Orange-crowned Warbler. The nearby
wood provided us with Red-bellied, Downy and Hairy Woodpeckers and a Flicker.
Later in the morning, a very brief glimpse of a Pileated Woodpecker brightened
the day.
AJ made a brief foray into
the woods and came back a few minutes informing us of a Winter Wren that
she found. We hurried over but were not able to find it. It
would have been way out of the 17 foot big sit circle anyway, so we weren't
too upset.
AJ called some Pine Siskins
that flew by - thoroughly convincing Kate and I that we were WAY
out of our league.
The civilian activities were
entertaining. As we pulled up about 7:30am, there was a car already
in the parking lot for the overlook. Given it's condition and the
evident slumbering of the occupants, we wrote it off to local drifters.
Frequently, throughout the morning, we had people come up and ask us what
we were doing. We briefly discussed coming up with the explanation
that we were with the CIA and were helping the Navy test their new river
submarine fleet. We decided that would involve even more explanation
than "birding" so we shelved it (still think it's a good idea).
One pair of visitors evidently
were horribly disappointed to find that their favorite special spot had
been invaded by people who evidently, from the various devices we had spread
around, had no intention of leaving soon. They waited us out for
a while, than apparently continued with their plans. Ahem.
Early in the morning, the
sky was clear and the sun was shining. Since we were looking east
into the river, we didn't have optimum light and kept talking about how
great it was going to be once the sun came around to the south and west.
Well, it got cloudy, the ducks moved out or into the center of the river
and the birding ground to a complete halt. Finally, we got to SIT
at our big sit. Up to this point, we had been so busy, we were completely
violating the lethargic spirit of true big sitters. We resolved to
pull up stakes at 1pm. And of course, right about 12:30, the sun
breaks out, lights up the firmament, blue skies erupt and all the hawks
that weren't to be seen all morning, rise up at once. In that half
hour, we had a Bald Eagle, about 8 Red-tailed Hawks, several Sharpies and
a couple of Coopers.
At 1:00pm, however, we decided
that the remaining birds that we "could" get would be pretty unlikely,
so we headed for some warm food.
Our total for the morning,
54 species, all seen from a 17 foot circle.
We discovered a new birding
rule - The good birds show up when you have a bagel with cream cheese in
your hand.
Jim Frazier
10/19/97 |
