Here in Missouri, April is a month of avian transition. By the middle of the month, the last of the winter residents are departing while, throughout the month, summer residents are filtering in. Evidence of that shift change was evident at Phillips Lake this morning.
Out on the lake were flocks of northern shovelers and ruddy ducks, soon to depart for breeding grounds to our north. A handful of yellow-rumped warblers (our winter warbler) were feeding in the trees and shrubs that line the shore, fueling up for their journey to Canada. Meanwhile, tree and northern rough-winged swallows, back from a winter in the south, were strafing the surface of the water and a lone green heron, my first of the season, hunted along the shoreline. By the end of April, many more summer species will grace the park.
Of course, permanent residents such as cardinals, robins, blue jays and others, tend to dominate the bird population in most Midwestern ecosystems. One wonders if they take notice of the migrants and seasonal residents that join them in the course of a year; unfortunately, too few humans do.
