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