[mou] Marsh Wrens in Duluth

[Laura Erickson]

This afternoon I took a walk at the Western Waterfront Trail in Duluth.  I 
had a total of 41 species between 3:30 and 5 pm.  I've had 8 species of 
warblers there this week, and in addition this afternoon, saw my first 
Rose-breasted Grosbeak and Baltimore Oriole there.  One male Northern 
Pintail has been hanging out there all week--he was still there, in the 
open water just beyond the large cattail marsh at the entry to the 
trail.  And best of all, I had at least two singing male, and one 
non-singing male or female, Marsh Wrens.  They were NOT in the first big 
cattail marsh, where you enter the trail from the parking lots on Grand 
Avenue.  I followed that trail below the Indian Point Campground, past the 
final little trail up into the campground, and up until the path takes a 
sharp turn to the left at a small cattail marsh, before the pine 
stands.  The wrens were in the cattails.  When a couple of people walked 
by, talking, the wrens stopped singing for 7 or 8 minutes.



Laura Erickson
Duluth, MN

Producer, "For the Birds" radio program
<http://www.lauraerickson.com/>

There is symbolic as well as actual beauty in the migration of 
birds.  There is something infinitely healing in the repeated refrains of 
nature--the assurance that dawn comes after night, and spring after the winter.

                                 --Rachel Carson