Entering Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area this morning, the windows down on my pickup, it looked like January but felt like April. The brown vegetation and barren trees evoked an image of winter but the mild air, scented with the fragrance of moist soil, spoke of early spring. A rosy dawn backlit the hills to the east, augmenting the feel of an April morning.
Mallards were abundant on the ponds and wet fields, joined by sizable flocks of coot, gadwall, pied-billed grebes and Canada geese; small flocks of shovelers, lesser scaup and ring-necked ducks also graced the scene. As is typical for mid winter, ring-billed gulls swirled above the wetlands, northern harriers strafed the crop fields, red-tailed hawks patrolled the grasslands and an immature bald eagle circled overhead, spooking the ducks. Great blue herons stalked the shallows, sharp-shinned hawks darted through the woodlands and, surprisingly, a quartet of American white pelicans gathered along a marshy shoreline, satisfied to stay up north for this mild winter season.
Parking in a remote lot, I got out to enjoy the spring-like conditions; since the waterfowl hunters have departed and the spring birding crowd has not yet arrived, I was treated to the peaceful solitude of the winter season, minus the blowing snow and frigid air. Though a freight train rumbled west of the Missouri, all other sounds were natural, including the raucous call of crows, the muted chatter of waterfowl, the rustling of sparrows in the dry grass and the drumming of woodpeckers in the riverside forest. A special treat was the distant howl of a coyote, yet another sign that the season of renewal will soon invade the floodplain; I could almost see the purple haze of henbit on the barren fields.
