Back at it again today cleaning and maintaining my Prothonotary Warbler nest boxes. 215 down and 35 to go. Light at the end of the tunnel. After all have been cleaned and maintenance done, I plan to give a fresh coat of paint to the box numbers. Some are looking like the faded automobile license plates you see on some cars. The number is there but it is getting hard to tell what it is.

Every year I find a new way to make life interesting while servicing the nest box trail. Today I had this year's event. I saw a more direct route to the next box in the area I was working, rather than circle around the perimeter I looked over the mud flat between the boxes. It looked dry enough to hold me so I slowly started across. All went well until the very middle. The right foot came down solid and I stepped on with the left foot and my leg sank to within a few inches of the boot top. My balance wavered. I tried to steady myself, with a backpack on and new nest boxes under each arm. I lifted my left foot and it came up sans the boot. In trying to get the foot back in the boot I managed to sink my left leg in mud up to the knee. With my arms full I could not grip the stuck boot and I had to bring things to the other side and do a return trip with one boot. My wife said just throw out the sock and pants as they will never see clean again. Well, at
 least I did not fall into the mud. I put old towels over the car seat for the drive home. But the area was now cleaned and ready for winter, even if I wasn't. All through this adventure there were a few Mallards and a Northern Flicker that sounded like they were laughing rather than giving their usual calls. I think they were amused by the whole fiasco.

I did manage to see a few birds prior to then. On and along the edges of the mudflats were Great Blue Herons, Great Egrets, Double Crested Cormorants, Killdeer, Semipalmated Plovers, Greater and Lesser Yellowlegs; Least, Semipalmated, Pectoral, and Spotted Sandpipers. In the forested area I observed Red-headed Woodpeckers, Cedar Waxwings, Yellow-rumped Warbler, Cape May Warbler, American Redstart, Magnolia Warbler and back at the parking lot there were several Chimney Swifts overhead.

I vowed to be more graceful and smarter while I clean the next area's nest boxes.

Charlie Bombaci
Hoover Nature Preserve

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