On this cold, gray morning, I headed down to the floodplain of the Missouri River, southwest of Columbia. While most of the Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area was closed for waterfowl hunting, there was plenty left to explore and, as always, much to see.
A variety of ducks, oblivious to the distant shotgun blasts, fed and rested on the open ponds; mallards and northern shovelors dominated the flocks, joined by smaller numbers of pied-billed grebes, gadwall, hooded mergansers, wood ducks, coot and green-winged teal. Geese were absent but a trio of sandhill cranes rose from a harvested cropfield, circled overhead and then moved on to the south. Red-tailed hawks and northern harriers were common, as usual, and a lone rough-legged hawk hovered above a meadow, searching for voles or cottontails. The riparian woodlands and adjacent marsh harbored a mix of songbirds, including red-bellied woodpeckers, American goldfinches and swamp sparrows while mourning doves, eastern bluebirds and American kestrels balanced on powerlines, enduring a steady north wind. Finally, massive flocks of starlings and red-winged blackbirds wheeled about the refuge, feasting in the corn stubble or gathering in groves of drowned cottonwoods.
Though signs of beaver activity was evident along the wooded shorelines, mammal sightings were limited to a skittish herd of white-tailed deer and a lone coyote, nosing his way across a field. Nothing terribly remarkable on this raw November morning, just an escape to the stark beauty of a late autumn floodplain.
