THE OOLOGIST 



145 



A TRIP TO THE MARSHES OF 

 NORTHWESTERN IOWA 



It had been my desire for a long 

 time to take an outing to some of the 

 lakes and swamps of northwestern 

 Iowa during the nesting season of the 

 Ducks, Rails, Coots and Grebes for 

 the purpose of collecting a few sets, 

 so on the morning of May 25th 'Ar. 

 Martin C. Paulson and myself made a 

 get away from the work on the farm 

 and spent the following ten days at 

 the lakes and marshes in Palo Alto 

 and Clay counties. Seventeen years 

 before the writer spent a week during 

 the nesting season in this same lo- 

 cality and the decrease was very 

 noticeable in the number of nesting 

 species upon my return this season. 

 In 1905 I could have collected hun- 

 dreds of sets of the Sora Rail if I had 

 wished to do so, but this season we 

 failed to locate a single nest of this 

 rail, indeed we were unable to find 

 but few of the birds, saying nothing 

 of the eggs. 



During the period from 1905 to 1922 

 there had been a great change brought 

 about by the drainage of the ponds 

 and sloughs and this accounts for 

 the scarcity of these Rails as well as 

 of some other water birds. 



The day following our arrival at 

 Ruthven, we located a colony of Black 

 Terns nesting in a small swamp in the 

 western part of Palo Alto County. 

 This marsh was long and narrow and 

 contained perhaps twenty acres and 

 there were at least one hundred pairs 

 of these Terns nesting here. There 

 were also hundreds of Yellowheaded 

 and Red-winged Blackbirds nesting 

 here in the rushes, and the constant 

 din of their notes were ringing in our 

 ears at all times. The most active of 

 all of these birds were the little Terns. 



Of all of the water birds of the cen- 

 tral west, I think the Black Tern is 

 the most widely distributed, the most 



common and the most characteristic 

 summer resident of the marshes of 

 the plains and prairie regions. In 

 this marsh most of the nests were 

 built on decayed rushes which were 

 floating in great masses in water 

 about 18 inches deep. Under this 

 water was a layer of soft mud about 

 the same depth which made it very 

 laborious walking through it. 



It was in this swamp that Slim 

 (that is my pard who is 6 feet tall by 

 130 pounds), found his first Pied- 

 billed Grebe's nest. When some dis- 

 tance from me he called out to me to 

 come to him as he had found a won- 

 der, but as walking was a burden, and 

 I was investigating some Yellow-head- 

 ed Blackbirds' nests, I did not care to 

 go at once to see what all the noise was 

 about, but soon Slim called out again, 

 "Come h-e-r-e," and soon I was stand- 

 ing over his first Grebe's nest. When 

 I arrived upon the scene Slim pointed 

 to his find and there I saw eight eggs 

 slightly above the surface of the 

 water. 



It is needless to say that he was a 

 proud boy, as all of us older collectors 

 know very well how much joy and 

 satisfaction that a find like this will 

 bring to a young collector in his first 

 season of collecting. 



It was in this marsh that I found a 

 set of Yellow-headed Blackbird con- 

 taining four eggs which were very un- 

 usual in their ground color, which was 

 a light blue. This was the only one 

 out of the hundreds of sets which I 

 examined which had this shade of 

 ground color. 



We explored the small ponds and 

 sloughs in this same locality until 

 May 30, when we drove about nine 

 miles west to Swan Lake. The day 

 was very cold for the time of year and 

 a high wind was blowing from the 

 north which made it very disagreeable. 

 Most of the time, all the forenoon, 

 there was a heavy mist falling which 



