Variety of birds revealed after discovery of nature preserve

Recently, I had to travel to Indiana for my job, which necessitated driving to and from a large university and living out of a hotel situated in the middle of acre upon acre of big-box stores, fast food restaurants, and strip malls.

Needless to say this environment was less than stimulating or inspiring.

Luckily, I found a lovely nature preserve on the outskirts of the university where I was working. Listed in the visitor’s guide of the region, the “Celery Bog Nature Area” boasted paved trails as well as wood-chip lined footpaths with interpretive signs and apparently included a wetland. Great for bird watching, I thought, and was not disappointed.

As I turned down the road leading to the preserve, a sense of peace came to me. Although the preserve abutted a golf course and a residential neighborhood, there wasn’t a mall or store in sight. A bridge took me over a sizeable marsh; glancing quickly at it, I was amazed to see the number of birds, both in the air and in the water.

I parked near the Nature Center and set off on a fast walk to have a closer look. Several dozen feet overhead, ducks in pairs and small flocks whistled through the air; higher up, hordes of red-winged blackbirds, common grackles, robins and starlings flew in toward the marsh and the surrounding woodland. Yellow-rumped warblers – “butterbutts” – darted among the trees and shrubs lining the path, sallying out to catch insects on the wing or bending the stems of the tall grasses they clung to as they gleaned some edible morsel there.

As I looked out over the open water of the marsh, the comical sight of the upended sterns of dozens of mallard ducks greeted me. These “dabbling” ducks don’t dive and swim through the water in the pursuit of food; instead, they stay on or near the surface, sometimes just skimming it with their bills, other times tilting upside-down to nab vegetation a few inches down the water column, only to pop upright again like so many corks.

Interspersed among the mallards were other ducks I hadn’t seen in a long time: the aptly named northern shovelers. These large ducks have long, broad, flattened bills that are equipped with very small, fine comb-like structures called “lamellae” along each side. This helps them filter small invertebrates from the water as they skim their bills through it.

Northern shovelers breed throughout much of Alaska, the central Canadian prairies, the West, and the upper Midwest United States. There are smaller breeding ranges around the Great Lakes and eastern Canada. Pennsylvania, New York and Delaware also have “very local” breeding populations, according to the “Birds of North America” species account. The birds winter throughout Central America and a large portion of the Western U.S. and the lower U.S., so it was no surprise to see them in Indiana.

Curious to see if this duck has been reported during migration in Maine, I checked the Maine Bird Alert at www.mainebirding.net. Sure enough, there have been numerous sightings of this bird throughout the state during migratory periods. The last report – from Aug. 29 – came from Scarborough Marsh in southern Maine, but there have also been reports of sightings from Aroostook County, Moosehorn National Wildlife Refuge and South Thomaston, among other locations.

As I continued to scan the marsh, I noticed a large group of dark birds that were quite unlike the ducks. They slightly resembled chickens but were entirely black, save for a white beak and a white patch under their tails. They were a species of rail called the American coot, and, as do the shovelers, they breed elsewhere but are seen in Maine during migration.

As I watched the mallards, shovelers and coots in that thriving Indiana marsh, I became aware of a smaller form appearing and disappearing among them. This bird only stayed on the surface for a few seconds before diving; I had to be quick to note where it popped up again. Finally, I was able to identify it as a pied-billed grebe, and this bird is not relegated to brief migratory stopovers here – it actually breeds throughout Maine, as does the green-winged teal, another species of waterfowl I saw there in Indiana.

Rounding out this contingent were Canada geese and great blue herons, three of which I saw at once.

I may have traveled far from Maine, but I didn’t see anything I couldn’t see here. Although it was the wrong time of year to see Midwest specialties, I wasn’t complaining. Just experiencing the sheer volume of birds and the constant activity – such a riot of bird life – was a special gift.

bdnsports@bangordailynews.net