2016 Marsh Bird Survey

Offspring #1 asks me why I'm participating in the 2016 Marsh bird survey for Audubon, Minnesota.  As I tell him, "I like the challenge and the learning. It's actually a compliment to  be asked to participate," I think to myself who am I convincing because my explanation falls short.  Participating in the marsh bird survey is something that I 1. was honored to be asked and 2. glad I had a sibling who wanted to do it with me.  So on Sunday we did it.  I spent hours studying the sounds of these elusive birds.  I spent a couple hours inputting the gps coordinates in an old Garmin GPS device.  I also spent hours studying the maps which weren't that easy to read.  We had to devise our own routes based on what we thought was the most efficient way to join 9 separate marshes.  I decided we'd create a letter s on the map starting north of Crown, Minnesota, heading south west, then east, then south again and west again.  We took the coordinates and found our 9 spots.  Some were easy to remember.  A dead end road is easy to remember.  A cell phone tower road is easy to remember.  County Road 4 between Zimmerman and Isanti is a very busy road and we have 3 stops on that road.  Sitting on the side of the road is nerve wracking.  I guess I wouldn't be so nervous if I didn't see tire tracks in the grass where I am seated. We mark our spots with deck screws and white curly ribbon so we can find them again.  We see a sand hill crane walking around in the marsh and we hope it is still there when we come back. We hear frogs.  Trained on frog sound we can't help but identify the sounds. Frog sounds are almost as instinctual as pheasants.  We head south and what do we see on the telephone wire? A black bird with a white back of the neck?  Could it be a bob-o-link?  It is a bob-o-link!  What a treasure to see!  Right there this effort has been worth it.  The last 4 spots of the 9 assigned are quieter and will be easier to visit without getting run over.  On the way to the 8th spot I witness a round cement silo topped with a white round room.  Who lives there? Rapunzel?  The 8th spot is a little awkward because we are directly across from a small house which a tiny front yard.  The occupants are seated in the garage and eye us closely.  A woman wears a navy blue tank top.  I'm barely warm in my hooded sweatshirt.  And not that navy blue tank tops are worn only by a certain type of dangerous woman, we are nervous.  We decide to approach this marsh from another gps coordinate.  After all, we'll be playing an eleven minute tape playing the sounds of marsh birds at 80 to 90 decibels right by their house.  I wouldn't appreciate it if it was at my house. And with an eleven minute tape, if they did call the sheriff, the sheriff would have time to get to us before the time was up. We decide to run the route Sunday night.  We start at 8 o'clock which is about a half hour before sunset.  A pheasant calls.  "Pheasant!" we shout in unison.  In our family, it is a tradition to shout pheasant when you hear a pheasant and the first one to shout it "wins."  Another pheasant crows.  "Pphheeaassaanntt!?"  It's a tie.  I'm a little slow at first but I catch on and become quicker and shouting pheasant.  At one stop we hear a sora rail make a whinny sound.  Awesome!  Data worth taking now. We also hear a Wilson's snipe winnowing to the west.  Another snipe winnows to the east.  They take turns winnowing.  We take down that data too.  At the third spot we hear a woodcock peenting.Now that I've taken the woodcock class at the Eastman Nature Center I know the drill.  We're going to hear between 4 and 100 peents before it rises up into the air to do the sky mating dance.  We hear the woodcock turning around in circles as it peents.  Some peents sound closer because the bird is faced toward us.  We should focus on the marsh ahead of us but we turn and look backward over the road because that is where the woodcock is peenting.  I hear the sound of the wind whistling through the wood cock's tail feathers.  I don't see the woodcock zig zagging down but my sibling does so that was cool.  At the seventh spot we hear another whinny but this time it's a horse and not a sora.  Yes, I can tell the difference between a horse and bird.  It's dark!  We can't see. Cut me some slack. At the last stop we hear a sora call.  I can't wait until the part of the sound clip comes when the sora calls out. The tape plays the sora call.  I say out loud "Answer now."  The sora listens and follows my request and whinny's in response!  Hilarious!  I have control of the marsh!  A sand hill crane trumpets in the distance giving the perfect ending to this survey? Yes, I could have gone to bed at 9 instead of at midnight. Yes, it's true I could have relaxed instead of checking my body for wood ticks.  I might have watched something boring on television. Instead I was outside listening to birds and frogs and marsh birds and horses; figuring out gps points, looking for white curly ribbon drilled into the ground, hoping wood ticks weren't finding me irresistible, taking data for secretive marsh birds.  Who knows how marsh birds are doing with global warming and ecological fragmentation? No one, until now, that I wrote down I heard soras calling and Wilson's snipe and sand hill cranes.  I'm helping, in some small way on the border between Anoka County and Isanti County, preserving our ecology.  Like a Swiss watch, we will never know the importance of each tiny element until it is gone.