Tundra Swan Trip-Part 1

On the Friday after Thanksgiving, I didn't have to work very hard to talk my sissy into coming with me to see some swans down by the Mississippi. Since she's a little more familiar with that area than I am, I drove and she got to tell me where to go!!

Since we didn't find the swans until the very end of the trip, I'm going to do this post in 2 parts with the first part showing some of the interesting sites along the way and the second part (tomorrow) of just swans. Today's post includes a very short (4 second) movie of the swans--my first attempt at movies with my camera and also downloading it to Blogger. Tomorrow I hope to include a 20-second clip where you will get to see and hear more of the swans.

Naturally, no trip for us is worth starting out without copious amounts of snacks and mugs of hot beverages (not to mention a full tank of gas) from the local convenience store. While at the gas pump, right next to us the dog grooming lady pulled up with her adorable passengers. These 3 big doggies were so well-behaved....they each stayed in their appropriate seat while their "mom" was in the store paying for her gas. Amazing.....

That boxer in the front seat was so cute--I love their funny, squished-up faces.

Driving east, we traveled through the Whitewater Wildlife Management area, where the roads have only recently been repaired and re-opened from the August 2007 flood. We saw so many red-tailed hawks and bald eagles. This eagle sitting in a tree near the road was the only one I was able to get a picture of.

My sissy also spotted what appeared to be a large balde eagle nest in a tree off in the distance and when we put the spotting scope on it, we were able to see the bald eagle sitting atop the nest surveying his kingdom. Very cool.

When we got to the Weaver Bottoms backwater area, we found that most of the water already had a thin layer of ice on the top, so there was no waterfowl to be seen in that area. We crossed the Mississippi at Wabasha and ended up first in Nelson, Wisconsin where we had to stop for some cheese curds and so I could take a picture of this "larger-than-life" great blue heron for Mary.

We continued southward to the Riecks Lake Park where my sissy has always seen swans in the past. The water there also had a thin layer of ice but there were 3 swans....who decided to fly away about the time we got out of the car. Oh well, that stop wasn't a total waste because right next to the parking lot was this really big tree that a beaver has been working on.

This tree is going to make one heckuva splash when it hits the water!

Onward to Alma, Wisconsin....no swans here either, but there were large flocks of seagulls flying around at the lock and dam. Can anyone tell me if they're catching fish? Or why do they like to hang around here where the water is all stirred up by the dam?

Driving through Fountain City, Wisconsin, I came across this sign for my friend Tom. We didn't stop to check out the establishment, but Mon@rch, if you ever get to southwestern Wisconsin, you'll want keep this place in mind....

We finally made our way from Wisconsin down to Brownsville, Minnesota, where our Audubon club had gone on a tundra swan field trip last Sunday. This was our last hope for seeing any swans and we drove quite a few miles without seeing anything. We decided to go just a little bit further before giving up and turning around for home and as we came around a bend and started heading down hill, we could see the backwaters were all covered with little white specks. Gulls or swans?? Sissy grabbed her binoculars and confirmed they were swans.....thousands of them!

Tune in tomorrow for "Tundra Swan Trip-Part 2."