American White Pelicans

Away from the malls, far from the madding crowds we went today. Anne and I took Dave and Maren to the Riverlands for some birding. It’s supposed to rain all weekend, so we took advantage of this interval of relative dryness to get outside. It was a grey day, but most of the birds that we saw were roosting and not on the wing, mitigating the day’s slowed shutter speeds. It is prime pelican season, but a little too early for eagles or swans. Our first stop was at the Audubon visitor’s center, where there were a couple of old guys running the array of spotter scopes. They had spotted a lone Bald eagle for us. Getting out and walking around we saw the pictured squadron of pelicans. We also saw a pair of Kestrels that are apparently regulars. We also saw a raft of scaups, of the lesser or greater variety and no other birds of note. Except we finally saw one Trumpeter swan. Swan is the loneliest number that you ever saw…

We ducked over to Alton, Illinois for some lunch at Just Desserts, where because life is both short and uncertain, you always order dessert first. The building where the restaurant is located is historical enough that Abe Lincoln once frequented it too. I hope that with what eventually happened to him, he also ordered dessert first. Then it was back to the Riverlands. We wanted to take Maren to the Confluence. Where the two great rivers meet at the point of Ted Jones State Park. She had even worn her rubber boots for the occasion and was prepared to plant one foot in the Mississippi and the other in the Missouri, but the road was closed due to flooding. We tried again, circling around to Columbia Bottoms, but were flooded out there too. It was then high time to head home. Passing the exit for Galleria, I noticed that traffic was backed up onto the highway. I hope that all those shoppers were having as good a time as us today.