Despite the cool, gray weather, birdlife was pleasingly varied along the Missouri River yesterday afternoon. Hiking along the Katy Trail, west of Columbia, we found the cliffside forest and floodplain woodlands alive with the sight and sound of avian residents and visitors, some newly arrived from the south.
Lending color to the overcast afternoon were northern cardinals, blue jays, bright male goldfinches, indigo buntings, rufous-sided towhees, yellow and yellow-rumped warblers, blue-gray gnatcatchers and northern orioles. Less colorful but equally conspicuous were eastern wood pewees, tufted titmice, black-capped chickadees, mourning doves, house wrens, American robins and a lone wood thrush. The calls of red-bellied and downy woodpeckers, northern flickers, American crows and white-breasted nuthatches echoed through the woodlands, a great blue heron hunted in a shallow pool, squadrons of cliff swallows strafed the river and a flock of turkey vultures soared above the limestone bluffs.
Had it not been a spontaneous, mid-day stroll, devoid of binoculars, many more species could have been found along that scenic stretch of the Missouri. After all, this is the peak of the spring warbler migration, an exciting and productive time for avid birdwatchers.
