Oklahoma's spring birding eden

摘要

BY THE TIME SENSORY OVERLOAD SUBSIDED, it was apparent I'd found the perfect way to launch a late February morning. Naturalist David Arbour and I were standing in Oklahoma's Red Slough Wildlife Management Area beside an old alligator nest strewn withleathery shells from last year's hatch. A Golden Eagle swooped low overhead, scattering flocks of Mallards, pintails, and snipe from a flooded marsh. A few yards away, a muddy slide creasing the bank of Push Creek was still damp from otter play. Then, as if on cue, a half dozen or more King Rails cranked up an unseen chorus from a dense tangle of green and brown bulrush.