Pt. Mouillee SGA - 26 Aug 2007
I took a ride out there late Sunday afternoon to see if any digiscoping opportunities would present themselves. After the heavy rains of Friday evening water levels were again high. The Lautenschager Unit was quiet, but the fields across the dike held several Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs, a pair of juvenile Short-billed Dowitchers, a half-dozen Semipalmated Sandpipers, four Least Sandpipers, and a single Wilson's Snipe. A pair of Northern Harriers flew low over the fields and scattered the shorebirds, but they returned after a few minutes. The Harriers disappeared into the Vermet Unit.
Riding along the North Causeway I had no luck seeing any Snowy Egrets in the Vermet Unit. The woods separating Cells 5 and 4 were active with several dozen House Finches, a pair of Black-and-White Warblers, a Nashville Warbler, and a somewhat cooperative Great-crested Flycatcher. The sand spit in Cell 4 was loaded with Ring-billed and Herring Gulls, a single Bonaparte's Gull, several Caspian Terns, and a single Forster's Tern. No Snowy Egrets. Cell 3 was also loaded with gulls, but I stopped only long enough to verify the Avocet in the northeast corner. It was resting a ways out, so I didn't bother to digiscope it. I managed several frames of a fly-by Caspian Tern that I converted into a composite image.
Riding down the Middle Causeway several hundred Red-winged Blackbirds flushed from the sunflower field and disappeared into the phragmites. Goldfinches were everywhere sunflowers were blooming. Blue-winged Teal were flying out in the Vermet Unit, along with Mallard and several Redhead. Lady's Thumb appears to have taken over the Vermet Unit as the rains have awakened the vegetation.
I stopped at the fields across from the Lautenschager Unit and managed to digiscope a Greater Yellowlegs from about 40 yds. Just before returning to the parking lot at Mouillee Creek I stopped and digiscoped several young Tree Swallows roosting along the shoreline. The setting sun gives them a bit of a brownish hue!
