Back on September 30th, a few days after getting my birding lens back from repairs I went out birding again of course. I went down to Trempeleau NWR which I've been to a few times before, although I had never seen anything like I saw there on this particular day! When I arrived and parked near the visitors center I was greeted with the sight of about 500-1000 American White Pelicans!!! In addition to that there were probably at least 100-200 Double-Crested Cormorants, 200 or more American Coots, 100-200 Gulls mostly Ring-billed but some amount of Franklin's mixed in since I got a photo of one of those too.
I've only seen 2 or 3 really huge birding migration events like this in person before, the first with Jillia LaCombe when we saw thousands of Tundra Swans migrating down the Mississippi river down in Brownsville, MN a couple years ago. It was another really wonderful amazing almost overwhelming experience! With that much going on at once it was pretty much a dream day of birding, and I got probably my best ever video of bird migration stuff. I have never seen that many Pelicans at once before and the same goes for the American Coots who were feeding right next to the little visitor observation shelter/dock. There were also a few Bald Eagles and Red-tailed Hawks around of course. Anywhere there are that many birds there's going to be some Raptors. Luckily I had my tripod so I just set it up on the corner of a wooden bench thing in the obserbation area sitting back as far from the edge of the water as possible, and sat there for the next hour or longer I'm not sure exactly becuase it was just such an amazing sight! At one point a couple of the friendly NWR staff were shooting their own promotional video telling people to come there to see cool migration stuff but I edited out the sound as best as I could. They sure picked the right day having a backdrop of a thousand birds!
After awhile the Pelicans were mostly headed further down the shore to find more food stuffs, so I hiked out on to the end of one of the dykes and on the way came across a swarm of Common Grackles up in the trees (with a few Red-winged Blackbirds). At the end of the Dyke I laid on the ground waiting for birds and getting some more photos. I got my best photos ever of some American Wigeons simply becuase the only other photo I have was one from an overcast day at Bass Ponds from quite a distance. I also spotted some Green-winged Teal which I don't think I've seen since spring. I continued my hike from there back towards the endtrance of Tremepealeau and saw a couple Red-headed Woodpeckers, and also White-crownd Sparrows who I finally got some good photos of!
I hiked around the little Prarie trail they have there, stopping again for a short while by a bench to get some more photos and also eat early lunch. On that trail I saw a Palm Warbler! Which is the first I had seen since spring. There was also some kind of Clouded Yellow Butterfly which I can sometimes identify to the species but sometimes not. I hiked back to Visitors Center parking area after that and then drove a little bit down the Wildlife Drive to the parking area for another dyke trail that goes way out there on the Eastern part of the refuge.
I think it's the only trail I hadn't ever walked at Trempealeau before, so it seemed like the thing to do as the afternoon went on and it was in the East. I ended up hiking out towards the end of the dyke and sitting there getting a few more photos then deciding to take an afternoon nap for maybe 60-90 minutes. I woke up when I heard another person finally come along with his dog, then sat around little bit more getting photos then hiking back to my car and heading home.
