The Main Pool along the first part of the Wildlife Drive is almost completely dry! There is still a shallow channel with some fish. That channel, that can also be seen from the Seneca Trail Tower, is becoming “eagle central,” especially in the early part of the day. The other day, Chuck counted 15 bald eagles from the tower!! On Tuesday, Linda B. and I had 20 eagles in that area!! There were some turtles on a dead carp, a turkey vulture and 2 ruddy ducks near the spillway . Eaton Marsh still has the “Montezuma Pre-School” for geese. We only counted 21 but some folks who spoke with me later saw all 22 that we had seen last week! In the northern end of Eaton we saw a Mallard hen with eleven ducklings.
In Benning Marsh I saw something really cool that I have never seen before. I watched a greater yellowlegs nab a minnow and move it around in its mouth and swallow it just like a great blue heron positions and swallows a fish!! It all happened so quickly, I didn’t get a picture. I did some checking and yellowlegs are known to eat minnows!! Wow, I did not know that!!
There were killdeer and spotted sandpipers along the Wildlife but the other shorebirds were way out in the back that we saw flying around from the tower. The Visitors’ Center Wetland is the shorebird hotspot right now. We discovered 4 Wilson’s Phalaropes there (pic will be included in a second email) and several species of shorebirds. The phalaropes looked really weird because they weren’t swimming. They were running around like yellowlegs!! It was hard to keep track of them and capture them with a camera.
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