We're birding
along the Mississippi River!3/13/08 First Crane arrives on Coon Creek
Click here to see a history of past Sandhill Crane arrival dates for Western Wisconsin.
Birding Table of Contents:
Cranes, Pelicans, Egrets and Great Blue Herons are all back on the Upper Mississippi. As of April 5, Lake Pepin was still ice-bound, so Bald Eagles are still abundant along open water. Water is quite low for spring, temps struggle to get much above 50 degrees.
New Features!
Check out our Birding notecards. "I'll take any heron cards you have. I just spent a great couple of hours with a new friend... I'd like the cards to remind her of our time together!"Bald Eagle Watches proliferated this winter on the Upper Mississippi River. Though the water is now open, the Mississippi River is crowded with Bald Eagles, gulls, and migrating waterfowl.
- "Eagles are the Comeback Birds" by Pat Middleton. Also a listing of the variety of community eagle watches offered along the Mississippi River will be updated as the info comes in.
Riparian? That means water-dependant environments. We call them "rivers" up north. The difference is that our "rivers" tend to stay in place year-around!
- We recently visited the San Pedro River Basin in Southeast Arizona. Like the Bosque del Apache and the Platte River in Nebraska, wetlands in Arizona are home to thousands of wintering Sandhill Cranes and other birds.
- Enjoy the day that fish flew and Eagles swam by Pat Middleton. Numerous photos of the various Upper Mississippi River Asian Carp.
"Kitty, Kitty, Kitty!" Cats, pose a grave problem for rural wildlife. This new feature suggest that cats kill between 8 and 217 MILLION birds each year in Wisconsin alone!
- Tundra Swans are back on the river each spring and fall between Alma and Stoddard, Wisconsin, resting as they migrate back to Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast. This is a magnificent sight, with 15,000 - 20,000 white swans clustered primarily on Reick's Lake just north of Alma, Wisconsin,, at Minnieska, MN, and just north of Stoddard, Wisconsin and at Brownsville, MN.
- Sign our Birding Guest Book to download a lifetime bird checklist.
- "Where to Look for Birds"
- Where to Look for Birds (St. Paul to Dubuque) with Fred Lesher (La Crosse Birder) Volume I, Discover! America's Great River Road, by Pat Middleton. First Hand reports of Ivory-billed Woodpecker sightings in the Atchafalaya Basin, Volume 4 of DISCOVER! America's Great River Road
Sandhill Crane excerpt from Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
- Organized Public Watch Schedules: Bald Eagles, Tundra Swans, Sandhill Cranes, and Pelicans. (we will add more as we learn of them. Send in your schedules!) Also, seasonal sighting reports from viewers.
- Great Crane Links!
On April 28, 2005, Arkansas Wildlife officials confirmed an Ivory-billed woodpecker sighting along the White River in Arkansas. In fact, there have been several independent sightings in the past eight years. SEE VOLUME 4 of DISCOVER! America's Great River Road for an interview with a resident guide who has had three separate sightings over several years in Louisiana's
Atchafalaya Basin.
He spoke with an older local woman who identified a photo of the Ivory-billed easily...
"Oh yes, that's a wood turkey. Very good eating!"
- Click Here to view more on the Discover! series by Pat Middleton
Click Here! here to post your bird sightings, questions and comments for our other readers.
Click Here to visit our posting ARCHIVE. Sorry folks.. we are redoing the posting pages. Please watch for us!
Special Reports:
Seasonal Sightings
- Bald Eagle Watches (Winter)
- Tundra Swan Watches (Spring and Fall migrations)
- Our Own Sandhill Crane Watch! (Spring) Just for fun, I did a search of newsgroups with DEJANEWS. People are talking sandhill cranes!
"First Day" sightings of Sandhill Cranes in the Stoddard, Wi area:
March 12, 2008 3 Sandhill cranes fly over Goose Island near La Crosse.
March 13, 2008 A Single crane flies, calling, over Coon Creek near Stoddard. Lots of melting snow in the valley. Temp of 56.7 degrees.March 11, 2007 Sandhill Cranes on the islands off Goose Island Park south of La Crosse. Temps in upper 40s, two weeks after record snowfalls in Western Wisconsin, so lots of snow on the ground. March 12 the cranes are reported along Coon Creek and other valleys off the Upper Mississippi River.
Feb 23, 2005 (a good two weeks earlier than normal!)
March 15, 2003
March 13, 2002
March 13, 2001March 16, 1999
March 1, 1998
March 10, 1997
March 13, 1996
March 18, 1993
April 4, 1992
March 9, 1988
March 17, 1987
A note to viewers
Our farm lies perched above a broad wetland valley. Back in the mid-80s I heard something we had never heard before, the unison calls of a pair of sandhill cranes. When it was verified by our local conservation warden and by the University of Wisconsin, we could claim to have reported the first nesting pair of sandhill cranes in the La Crosse area since before the turn of the century.
Since then, our neighborhood has maintain a spring "Crane Watch." I hope you enjoy this Sandhill section of the Mississippi River Guide. The quote which follows is one of my favorites. --Pat Middleton, Author, Discover! America's Great River Road
Excerpt from A Sand County Almanac by Aldo Leopold
"The sadness discernible in some marshes arises, perhaps in their once having harbored cranes. Now they stand humbled, adrift in history.
"Someday, perhaps in the very process of our benefactions, perhaps in the fullness of geologic time, the last crane will trumpet his farewell and spiral skyward from the great marsh.
"High out of the clouds will fall the sound of hunting horns, the baying of the phantom pack, the tinkle of little bells, and then a silence never to be broken, unless perchance in some far away pasture of the milky way."
--Aldo Leopold, Marshland Elegy
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Note from a viewer: Lynn Cote'
I "hot-linked" to the Cranes Page, it looks WONDERFUL.
My parents found a sandhill crane (down in the boonies of SW Texas) that had been hit by a car. They corraled it; Dad had to tie its beak shut. They took it to the vet. One of its wings was broken. The vet couldn't save it, because the "air-sac" had been ruptured on one side. My parents hated that; however, it didn't suffer as long at the vet's as it would have by the side of the road! They said it was beautiful - and quite feisty.
Just an interesting little tidbit; we didn't know until then that they didn't have lungs! Thanks, again!
- US FWS Endangered Species Whooping Crane
- -- http://www.fws.gov/bio-whoo.html (Score 65, Size 8K)
Whooping crane, (Grus americana) . Line Art (2.2 K image) . Line Art (8.7 K image) . Line Art (3.9 K image) . [US FWS Line Art by Robert Savannah] . Photograph (33.6 K image) . [US FWS Photograph By Steve Hillebrand] . Once very close to ... (See also Similar Pages)
- Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge
- -- http://www.gorp.com/gorp/resource/us_nwr/ga_okefe.htm (Score 62, Size 11K)
Refuge Manager . U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service . Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge . Route 2, Box 3330 . Folkston, Georgia 31537 . (912)496-3331 . Okefenokee National Wildlife Refuge is one of almost 500 refuges in the National Wildlife ... (See also Similar Pages)
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