Prom Night: Beyond the Warbler Wave

"What brings you to this neck of the woods?" said the woman behind the desk at the Country Inn in Two Harbors.

"Birding," I replied.

That isn't exactly true. Hilary and I have gotten into the habit of taking a week off at about this time of year—my birthday also happens to fall conveniently within the range—to roam the countryside exploring new sights, revisiting old favorites, eating a lot of cheese and crackers, and camping or sleeping in motels, depending on availability, whim, and weather.

But the fact that many species of birds are passing through the state on their way to nesting grounds farther north—birds that we haven't seen in their prime, if at all, since last year's migration—makes the trip that much more interesting.

We usually head south down the Mississippi Valley, but this year the forecast in Preston (south) was 46 degrees and rain, while in Duluth (north) it was 65 degrees and sun.

The question was, had the warblers gotten that far north yet?

"Birding," I said to the woman behind the desk, then added, "But there aren't any birds!" That wasn't precisely true, either. We'd seen some very fine little creatures, including one spectacular close-up of a magnolia warbler, during a hike through Banning State Park on the drive up.

After getting settled in our room we drove down to the harbor and were surprised to find that the parking lot was full of cars. It looked like a wedding event, but the gowns were so diverse and the vehicles so many that we soon rejected that idea. A woman sitting on a bench told us: "It's prom night. Everyone comes down here to take pictures."

Indeed, there were lots of teenage girls in fancy dresses, lots of shoulders exposed and midriffs covered by sheer garments. The poor girls were probably freezing.  The boys, as usual,  wore a less imaginative (but warmer) array of suits and ties. Parents, friends, and siblings were also present with cameras. I even took a picture myself.  

Then I saw a yellow bird fly into the single leafless bush between the mass of teens and the breakwater. A Nashville warbler! Beautiful white eye-ring.

While I was looking at it, Hilary said, "Look. There's a horned grebe." It had just popped up from the depths of the harbor. (see above)

Just then I noticed a Lincoln sparrow sharing the bush with the Nashville warbler: beautiful breast, a band of pale gold under the sharp dark streaks. 

 

We headed off across the slabs of rock and I soon spotted a sparrow hopping around in a clump of last year's tall grasses. He had a yellowish wash in the streaks above his eye: a Savannah sparrow. That's a common bird, but I rarely see one.

We made our way along the shore keeping to the shelter of wooded fringe above the shelves of rock. It was cold, and there wasn't much activity, but as we rounded the bend we noticed a group of twenty-odd ducks pretty far out to sea. Long-tailed ducks?

Yes. And one of them, off by himself, had drifted fairly close to shore, from which point we could see his exotic plumage clearly.

By the time we got back to the parking lot the prom-goers had dispersed, leaving behind a few young boys and old men trying to make the most of the fishing opener by casting from shore.

Weddings are joyous events. Prom night? Perhaps slightly less so. How many couples will last the weekend? The next two years? Right now it doesn't matter. Who will become mayor, who will move to the Cities, who will find herself folding clothes at the local Laundromat to make ends meet? It doesn't matter. It's the excitement of the moment, the sense of participation, the drama of the social group and the expectation of a long, wild, and perhaps romantic evening ahead.

But maybe the long-tailed ducks have an easier time: find a mate within the floating mass of chattering kindred spirits, raise a brood in the Arctic, spend the winter vacationing together—a package tour—on the open ocean. Repeat.

I ought to say something more about the beautiful hike we took along the Quarry Trail at Banning State Park. There were few leaves on the trees, and that made it easier to see the warblers, which included not only the magnolia warbler but also several black-and-whites, palms, and myrtles. The trail follows a ridge above the Kettle River past an abandoned sandstone quarry. We took a spur farther downstream to the top of the whitewater at Hell's Gate.

Buddy Snow, a member of my Boy Scout troop, lost his life there when I was in junior high school. He was canoeing with his dad, it was early spring, the water was frigid. Buddy was older than me, I didn't know him at all, though I knew his sister, who was in quite a few of my classes all the way through high school.

As a teen I felt there was something awful and mysterious and somehow sacred about the event—the evident finality of it all. That might seem too obvious to mention, but when you're a kid such feelings are rare. And that lingering feeling lent a somber, almost metaphysical quality to the dark and fast-moving yet strangely beautiful and unruffled water we were looking at now, a half-century later.