Day 11 THursday October 9, 2014- Cancel Covered bridges, off to Saylorville Lake

   The plans were changed by the rain that we had overnight. After those two sunny cloudless day, I guess we could deal with a weather change. It rained at night so that didn't really stop the day activites, but they just started later. After reviewing what was in the "Makoke Trail" book, I had already marked the Saylorville Lake as a possible place to visit  for some  birding.

   Back to the "Makoke Trail" for  minute. It was designed and named, as it means "bird" or "owl"  in the language of the Ioway tribe. This name was chosen in honor of the people who inhabited much of Iowa. All the sites in the book are within a 30 mile radius of Des Moines. All of it lies within the heart of the grassland prairie region,  the ecosystem that once dominated the midwest as we stated last night in the blog.

So we headed north and east from the campground on easily travelled roads. Saylorville is one pf 22 sites in the "Mahoke" reference book for birding the area. It covers about one third the acreage (6,000)  that Red rock reservoir does but in flood times becomes three times its own size and has saved over $250,000,000 in property and lives, since it began operating in 1977.

We found our way to the dam site to begin the tour and stopped along the outlet for the dam that is the Des Moines River.  There are two campsites there, one on either side of the flowage  from the dam. This site too, is run by the Corps of Engineers.  Although the visitor center was closed except for 2 hours in the afternoons, we found the information we needed to have a well informed visit.

Our trip around Jester  Park, the name of the park that is on the western shore, took us along the Lake shore  where we saw many White Pelican and a huge flock of Double Crested Cormorants , along with the three gulls in the area (Remember them?) Herring, Franklins, and Ringbilled.  I think the biggest surprise of the day was when we were going through an especially heavily wooded area on both sides of the road , Ruth said," This sure would be a great habitat for Pileated Woodpeckers". She was right,  for in  about 10 seconds, two of them flew into view and we watched them for more than 5 minutes from the car. They we surrounded by a number of Red Bellied Woodpeckers who must have had a great feed in those trees.  That was a treat to be sure.

This picture is a picture taken previously as the one I took today is just in video. Will post at another time.

    There in the park, were some Bison and a few Elk that to me looked miserable in their enclosure. Certainly not as much room to roam as we saw at the Prairie Education Center at Neal Smith NWR. I am sure they are well cared for but they need more space. (As I said, before,  I am not a "Zoo guy" either.

   A few other birds that we saw were; Wild Turkey, Eastern Phoebe,  Sandhill Cranes, and an amazing competition between three American Bald Eagles that were vieing for space on two dead "spar"  trees. They soared in the area across the river from where we were standing. I followed them with the camera (video)  and the eldest one actually forced a younger one out of its roost and took it over. It was a wonderful sight to see these young eagles in their finest moments. We are blessed to watch them in their environment.  It was a fine ride to see great sights.

                                                  Eastern Phoebe seen along side of a pond .

          Not the actual one we saw today, but that gives you an idea of how beautiful these birds are.

   We returned a bit earlier than usual which gave me  chance to practice horseshoe pitching in our campground.  I played one game and beat myself 11-9.

Supper was waiting for us as Ruth had chicken on the slow cooker and the trailer was filled with great "kitchen" smells as we returned late in the afternoon. Veggies made the dinner complete.

We will try to get to the Madison County bridges tomorrow although we were told it was the "Bridge Festival weekend". We shall see, as crowds are not our favorite thing.  Thanks for reading and pass the word to others. I had 47 "hits" yesteday on the site and that's a great number.