Mt. Baldy (not quite) part 2

Apparently after significant cutting back, I still had a monstrously large post, so this is the second of four parts about Thursday, March 31, 2011

3/31/11

Thursday dawned with the sweet songs of birds. But what made this different and shocking was that I was hearing possibly hundreds of birds. No joke. One thing that I learned over the course the day is that you can’t avoid birding by ear. You almost never see a bird before you hear it. This was especially true for the woodpeckers who made the majority of the morning noise. From the raucous gurgle of Red -bellied Woodpeckers (Melanerpes carolinus), the high pitched tweets of downy woodpeckers (Picoides pubescens), to the distant hyena like Northern Flicker (Colaptes auratus), all accompanied by Robins (Turdus migratorius) and Tufted Titmice (Baeolophus bicolor). It felt as though the last one was teasing me all day since every time I got close enough to attempt to capture it’s photo it flew to a just far enough tree and proceeded to sing while I chased after it. But one can hardly get angry at the gorgeous little sky blue and white bird with it’s simple but melodious song.

I decided today’s goal would be to make it out to the famed Mt. Baldy all the way at the east tip of the national park. I began by heading in the direction of Beverly Heights. This took me through marsh habitat the likes of which I’ve never seen.

Before I even entered, I heard Sandhill Cranes (Grus Canadensis) singing in the distance which I tried to follow while staying on a general course for baldy. It should be noted that if you haven’t heard Sandhill cranes trumpeting in the distance your soul is missing a piece. Somehow it gives you a jubilant, triumphant, and ecstatic feeling. But that’s me.

…Anyway…

This marshland had varying levels of quality from fairly messy to clean, but overall fairly healthy and in every case the area seemed completely devoid of non-native and invasive plants such as Phragmites (Phragmites australis) and reed canary (Phalaris arundinacea). It was here also that I probably saw the most birds. With the constant overlay of Redwing Blackbirds (Agelaius phoeniceus) there were occasional Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) glinting emerald plumage in the morning sun,

a Red-tailed hawk (Buteo jamaicensis), Song sparrows (Melospiza melodia), Chipping sparrows (Spizella passerina), a Bufflhead (Bucephala albeola), and a great deal of fowl in the form of Northern Shovelers (Anas clypeata),  Blue-winged Teals (Anas discors),

 


Lesser Scaup (Aythya affinis), Canada Geese (Branta canadensis), Mallards (Anas platyrhynchos) of course, and plenty of wood ducks (Aix sponsa). The diversity of ducks is a pretty decent sign of the health of the marshes considering that they all feed in different sections of the food chain; shovelers eating surface invertebrates and biota, bufflhead and scaup diving for fish and shellfish, and mallards dabbling for aquatic plants. The large presence of wood ducks makes a great deal of sense in this heavily wooded marsh; it likes marshes but nests in the cavities of trees making this habitat perfect.
To Be Continued