Spring in the River Bottoms

I’ve poked around in the Wisconsin River bottoms since I got my first two wheel bike. It would be interesting to know how many hours I’ve spent fishing, hunting and just sitting and watching nature in this beautiful place we call the bottoms.

Yesterday I saw something I’ve not seen before despite thousands of hours of time enjoying the diverse nature just a mile from my home. I took my exchange student down to fish for a while so we could enjoy a perfect spring day. When we got there we saw blue winged teal, wood ducks, sandhill cranes, many shore birds and a pair of geese. The Papa goose was patrolling the area around Mama goose who was sitting on a muskrat house, most likely incubating eggs.

After a while we could see a sandhill crane sneaking through the cattails toward the geese and Papa got all excited and began honking and flapping his wings and drove the crane away. A few minutes later a second goose which I would think must have been another male flew in and began harassing Papa goose. The two swam around honking up a storm and then took off flying and Papa flew right into the Intruder and they both crashed to the water. Up they went again and Papa knocked Intruder into the water again. This went on for several minutes and they flew and crashed at least half a dozen times.

Finally Intruder swam off honking up a storm. Papa went over by Mama and they honked and waddled around with him hooking his neck around hers. Then she went back to the nest and he went back on patrol.

We didn’t catch any fish but what a cool show we got to see. That’s the beauty of the river bottoms, Mother Nature is preparing a new show all the time and all you have to do is be there at the right time to watch.

Dan Bomkamp - Author and Host of "How's Fishing"

http://www.waterfront-property-wisconsin.com/