The other day we walked the Terry Trueblood Trail (when do we not do that?) and saw interesting sights. I finally got a video clip of a goldfinch! And a male northern cardinal either sang to us or cussed us out. It was hard to tell.
It was a scorcher out there. We started out looking for a walking trail a guy gave us directions to a week or so ago. It’s a great place for birding. We found it, but here was no parking anywhere close. He told us that we could park in a farmer’s field, but we saw the farmer out there and decided not to chance it.
While we were out doing that, we drove by a cornfield, which really impressed Sena because we could drive right up close to it. She’s never detasseled corn. I have and I don’t think she missed anything. I walked the rows with fellow detasselers and we yanked them. We were in rows right next to each other. We could hear each other collapse from time to time from exhaustion. When you pulled the tassels out, they sort of squeaked. You could hear us: Squeak, squeak, squeak, thud.
On the other hand, we had a pretty good day birding out at Trueblood. I got a better video clip of a dickcissel. We saw a couple of geese scare a turtle off a rock in Sand Lake. We didn’t notice it at the time, but saw it on the video clip after we got home (which is still the hotel, by the way).
We saw several dickcissels. We still don’t think they sound like they’re singing “dick, dick, dick.” I think that’s a load of squeak, squeak, squeak. They are pretty birds, though.
