[Birdtalk] A Mantua Diversion

[Kristin Purdy]

I birded Box Elder Campground and Mantua Reservoir in Mantua, Box Elder 
County, today. Birding was very slow. There was more human activity than 
bird activity in the campground. The reservoir section where the ice is out 
also held a few fishermen, which kept the birds at the far edge. However, it 
was good to be outside on such a glorious day and I still found a few 
diversions.

Birdlife on the reservoir was concentrated in the southeast and north areas 
where I didn't go. However, I did see Common Loons among the coots and 
waterfowl and a pair of Western Grebes displaying to each other. The pair 
was doing the weed dance where they both surface with a clump of green weeds 
in their beaks and jerk their heads left and right while facing each other. 
Then they both dive and resurface minus the weeds while trying to look as 
nonchalant as possible. "Who, me?" they seem to say. "I wasn't flirting with 
that other grebe!"

Shortly after I arrived at the campground, I realized that I had pulled into 
a parking space along Box Elder Road in Box Elder Campground in Box Elder 
County and at least three times, I had to flick Box Elder bugs off my shirt. 
It was a Box-Eldery kind of day.

At least five Fox Sparrows have claimed territories along the creek in the 
campground and they were singing their hearts out as I proceeded through 
each territory. Watching the first bird, in particular, was very rewarding. 
After he decided I wasn't a threat, he resumed his high perch in a shrub and 
began to sing again. I took a postion just 30 feet away on a picnic table 
and the bird just didn't care that I was there. Later, I walked around him 
in a thirty-foot circle and he continued to sing and watch me. It's a 
pleasure to be able to enjoy these skulkers in the open while they're 
defending territories and before they return to their underbrush scratching.

Best sighting in the campground wasn't a bird at all, it was the 
butterscotch and lemon meringue-colored Long-tailed Weasel that jumped 
across the path about 50 feet ahead of me. I hoped the tiny, wiry creature 
would still be along the side of the trail as I approach cautiously during a 
time span of about 5 seconds. I caught a slight movement there and raised my 
binoculars to see the weasel again, alert and looking both ways before 
dashing across the path again. This time, however, the weasel was grasping a 
big vole tightly in its jaws so that the fore and hindquarters of the vole 
hung down on either side of the weasel's mouth. The vole was about the same 
girth as was the weasel. As the weasel jerked its head from side to side to 
check the path, the vole jiggled and its feet swayed with the motion. Then 
the weasel scampered across the path, returning to the place it had come 
from just 10 or so seconds beforehand. I can't imagine how quickly that 
weasel must have spied the vole on one side of the path, ran across, grabbed 
it and likely killed it, and then returned to the cover and likely its den 
on the other side.

Box Elder Campground is covered with deer droppings and the occasional pile 
of Tootsie Rolls. Oops; wait a minute; those might be moose droppings. I 
came across the carcass of the unfortunate maker of the Tootsie Rolls at 
Campsite #10, a moose that hadn't made it through the winter. The moose was 
harboring a welcome sign of spring, but in an unfortunate way. All you 
lepidopterists out there, know when you see your first Mourning Cloak 
butterfly and know it's spring? I saw one today, but the butterfly was 
serenely fanning its wings in the hollowed-out hindquarters of the moose 
carcass. Eeeuuuw! What do those butterflies eat, anyway?!?

Kris