2023 04 27 Iowa Trip
On April 27th at about 3 in the morning I decided I was going to take one more trip down to Iowa for some "sneak peeks" of migration that will make it to Minnesota a bit later. This time of year after such a long winter I am just so eager for life to start happening again! My first stop was a place I've been to once before in North East Iowa called Sweet Marsh Wildlife Management Area. I went there for the first time ever last May and had a wonderful birding/naturing experience and this trip was very similar, albeit slighlty earlier in the year.
There were so many cool birds and I laid prone for quite awhile in one spot getting closer to shorebirds than I have ever been before. I got both video and photos of a Killdeer and Lesser Yellowlegs poking around in the mud. Shorebirds are pretty hard to identify but they are just so much fun to watch the way they walk around like little dinosaurs. Tree Swallows are back!! The adorable and hard to photo birds that can distract me pretty much forever trying to get shots of their erratic acrobatic flight. A Broad-winged Hawk was soaring over the area too the first I've seen this year!
After that I went further South in Iowa to Cone Marsh WMA and Pike Run Wildlife Area for the afternoon and saw more cool birds including my first Eastern Meadowlark of the year (<3 Prairie birds) and I heard a Barred Owl in the woods I think it's my first time recording one. It's just always cool to see or hear owls OO At Cone Marsh there was a Sandhill Crane with the tiniest Colt I've ever seen in person. They were pretty far away but I got some video of the adorable lil Crane :)
https://photos.app.goo.gl/jLjrkjoqCdZ2XBtC9 FOTOS
https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL-E6rCCErIImOOzl-rZ0GJKOZ2W4dkAJo VIDEOS
https://ebird.org/checklist/S135172091 BIRD
https://ebird.org/checklist/S135221190 NERD
https://ebird.org/checklist/S135235647 STUFF
