A Morning on the Marsh

 Liz needed a ride to work after dropping off her car for some maintenance, so we were already well west in the county. Be a waste of gas not to turn it into a little birding trip, right?

The choice was Beardsley Reservoir or Cline Road Marsh?

For me it was easy. I love the marsh.

The sun was hanging low in the morning sky. I could not look east. It is November after all. However, the colors were as joyous as if September still reigned, just different...glowing red-gold cattails, soft grey and tannish phragmites, oaks as rusty red as the denizens of an old tractor graveyard. Late maples punctuated the grey stretches with lemon yellow, and tamaracks the same.

Just standing beside the car on the gravel road that runs there brought deep peace.

And the birds....in the time it took me to walk to the back of the car a swirl of Black-capped Chickadees had me lined up for inspection. Tufted Titmice dotted the flock. Common Ravens quothed out at the edge of the forest, with crows and jays quarreling everywhere.

I found the quietest bit of road to walk upon (gravel makes an awful crunch) and stepped slowly along the reeds.

There was a warbler in here, somewhere....

There! Just up ahead, low down in the phragmites! Something yellow!

I trained the bins on the busy little body, to find, much to my delight, the brightest Palm Warbler I have ever seen. His breast and undertail were thick, rich yellow, brighter than the nearby trees, his cap as delightful a russet as any forest oak.

I tried for a photo...or twenty...but the movement of exchanging binoculars for camera sent him whirling off into the marsh like a distant memory of a long-lost friend.

He never reappeared....

However, that dreaded...or anticipated, depending...yellow bar for a rare sighting appeared in the eBird window. I waited until we were in the car and within reach of cell signal to fill out the required data for the listing. He was not really all that rare, just late, but it is fun to make the state rare bird alert just the same.

Dark-eyed Juncos, Eastern Bluebirds, Red-breasted Nuthatches, and more and more chickadees appeared as I walked. A Common Yellowthroat showed up to cuss me roundly, and also to refuse to sit for his portrait. It was fun...cheap, easily obtained, really good fun.

As I stood beside the car at the end, not wanting my marsh time to end, something flew over calling. Not a sound I knew, so I whipped out my old hear-the-bird phone (new one doesn't pick up bird sounds well, so I carry the old, unconnected one to record sounds, then upload them home with the wifi),

Merlin said Lapland Longspur. I would have been skeptical, but saw three Snow Buntings yesterday so anything is possible. I hoped to post the recording on What's This Bird? when we returned home, but alas, it junk.

So I'll never know, and didn't count it.

Still it was a great time. We stopped briefly at Beardsley on the way home, but as has been the case for the last couple of years, it was a disappointment...a few Mallards and not much else. Oh, well, it's been a really weird migration so far with winter sparrows here at the same time as lingering warblers. I am loving this late warm weather, call it what you will. It is great to get outdoors every single day and be able to enjoy the beautiful, if more subtle, colors of late fall at the edge of the Adirondacks.

Stay focused....and get out there when you can.

Oh, we also passed a Water Buffalo dairy on the 
way home, so there's that.