Horicon Marsh!

Donna had arranged for her Sunday birding group to get a guided tour today of Horicon Marsh, the largest freshwater cattail marsh in the United States, by Carl Schwartz, a “past president … of the Wisconsin Society for Ornithology,” so I jumped at the chance. Horicon Marsh is the first “Wisconsin Birding Hotspot” listed on the Audubon Society website, so you might expect it to be good, and it did not disappoint.

The morning got off to a great start when we came across my very first black-necked stilt (Himantopus mexicanus), close cousin to the black-winged stilt I saw in South Holland last summer.

Before we knew it, two more had appeared, …

and they even attracted the attention of a nearby great egret, who flew over to see what they might be catching.

Another close cousin we saw was this one-of-many young common gallinule (Gallinula galeata), which are closely related to the moorhens we also saw in South Holland.

There were plenty of raptors about, and we spotted two red-tailed hawks, a young bald eagle, an osprey, and this northern harrier (Circus hudsonius). I’ve seen a harrier in Estabrook Park only one time, and I was able to recognize it by the distinctive white patch above its tail, which you can just make out in the image below.

A far more frequent sight in Estabrook are the pied-billed grebes, of which we saw several today. I guess Horicon is where they go after passing through Estabrook in the spring.

A huge treat, literally “the largest extant species of waterfowl, with a wingspan of 185 to 304.8 cm (6 ft 2 in to 10 ft 2 in),” were this family of trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator). We may have seen one in Estabrook when Lisa sent in pictures of a swan she spotted from afar near the islands on the Milwaukee River, or when I saw a flight high overhead in 2022, but they’ve always been too far away to tell trumpeter from tundra. Well, not today.

Here’s one of the cygnets looking pretty full-sized but still sporting a pink bill.

One of my favorite sights of this morning is this young ruddy duck (Oxyura jamaicensis). I know they’ve been seen in Estabrook, in fact the last reported sighting was by Donna just back in May, but they have eluded me so far. Maybe this fall, on their way south, eh? In any case, it was great to finally see one with my own eyes.

As the morning wore on, the pelicans started soaring, and here’s a little group in tight-ish formation.

Back to the water, we saw a couple of painted turtles, and here’s the more-photogenic one.

Finally, we stopped by the Marsh Haven Nature Center to check on their purple martins, which I don’t believe I’ve seen before, and here’s a youngster perched atop one of the martin houses.

And here’s an adult

What an adventure, right!