Blue Goose ~ Day 298

 March 21, 2015 ~ Terre Haute, IN to Indianapolis, IN

The sun was out, always the very first thing I notice (or look up on a weather app if it's still pre-sunreise), and a good day to visit Goose Pond and Beehunter Marsh, premier birding spots for Indiana residents. (Beehunter Marsh make take first place in wonderful names for a sanctuary.) The area is mostly fields, ditches, impoundments and dikes. Water levels vary throughout the year and is managed for wetlands like many of the refuges. I spent a couple of hours driving slowly on gravel roads seeing the usual late winter / early spring birds, including a large group of White Pelicans.

Song Sparrow - Goose Pond, IN

Song Sparrows were singing; hawks and vultures flew overhead; American Pipits and Horned Larks worked the fields of corn stubble.

American Pipit - IN

DHC had told me the Smith Longspurs had been seen in a very specific location an hour west of Indianapolis and an hour north of Goose Pond, so I headed there next. I sat in the car on a gravel road for an hour without a single other vehicle passing me. The longspurs were somewhere in the stubble field to the south and one was advised to walk into the middle of the field to "flush them" and that one   probably "would not see them from the road." But I did.....finally. There are often tantalizing twitterings when one is chasing a specific species, but for a long time I only saw a Killdeer and sporadic Horned Larks. But then there was a slight movement on the ground, soon followed by a small group of birds rising and flying a few hundred yards west. I followed, waited where they had landed and eventually got good enough looks at this life bird; in fact, there were at least two I saw clearly. They are very well camouflaged and I was lucky. As often happens, I go with bright expectations, thinking I will drive to a location, wait a few minutes and the bird(s) will be there. But at least half the time, they aren't that cooperative, so I wait until I get impatient and loosen up my general "bird anxiety" and then I see what I'm looking for. Not always, but often enough, which was the case today.

It was lovely out in this habitat of open fields and far horizons and sunshine on the cusp of a new spring.

Indiana (Smith Longspur fields)

My destination was Indianapolis and I arrived there late afternoon, where I stayed the next four nights, preparatory to DHC and my birding trip to New Mexico and Arizona...our Bird Odyssey #2.