Arriving at Eagle Bluffs Conservation Area just after dawn, I was greeted by a dense fog that enveloped the Missouri River floodplain. On my first loop through the preserve, I could barely make out the stately silhouettes of great blue herons and great egrets that rose amidst the shallows and, while I could hear their legions, the massive flocks of red-winged blackbirds were but dark shadows in the pea soup fog.
By 9 AM the fog was burning off and I watched skittish flocks of blue-winged teal as they moved among the wetlands. More sedate flocks of American coot lined the marshy shores, a group of long-billed dowitchers probed the shallows and scattered flocks of pied-billed grebes dove for their breakfast in the deeper pools. A dozen cormorants passed overhead, northern harriers strafed the meadows, belted kingfishers patrolled the channels and a lone osprey perched atop a dead snag, feasting on his morning catch. Now visible in the bright sunshine, I spotted a couple of snowy egrets among their larger cousins and noticed a few green herons and black-crowned night herons along the shorelines.
The massive flocks of red-wings were even more impressive on the sunlit floodplain and squadrons of turkey vultures began to venture from their roosts to test the mid morning thermals. In the full light of an October morning, there was no doubt that autumn had arrived in the Missouri River Valley; soon, the ponds and marshes of Eagle Bluffs, magnets to migrating waterfowl, will be covered with vocal congregations of ducks, swans and geese.
