As I entered Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area this morning, the sun was just clearing the wooded ridge along the east edge of the Missouri River floodplain. In concert, it illuminated a heavy frost that coated the fields, marshlands and barren woods of the refuge. Ice-covered shallows had flooded the crop stubble but, thanks to our mild winter, the ponds and lakes remained open.
Heading southward through the preserve, I noticed the bulky silhouettes of red-tailed and red-shouldered hawks, spaced along the wood margins, and saw a pair of bald eagles, perched in a large cottonwood. Northern harriers strafed the fields, squadrons of restless ducks and gulls wheeled overhead and stoic great blue herons waded through the icy pools. A belted kingfisher, noisy as ever, hunted above the primary channel while armadas of American coot docked on the east side of muskrat mounds to catch the morning sun. Winter sparrows and juncos flashed across the roadway, diving into thickets to evade the harriers, and a pair of downies picked their way through a grove of saplings.
Mallards and gadwall dominated the waterfowl population, joined by small flocks of lesser scaup, ring-necked ducks and wood ducks. Canada geese, already dispersed into their monogamous pairs, mingled with the ducks and, as noted above, coot were unusually common for this time of year, another reflection of our mild early winter. Though I hoped to encounter some of the trumpeter swans that are wintering in Missouri, none were evident at Eagle Bluffs this morning; that goal should be reached tomorrow, when I pay a mid winter visit to the Riverlands nature preserve, just north of St. Louis.
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