Bobolinks

When I was a girl, all summer there were bobolinks on our farm on French Road. In time they disappeared, probably victims to the DDT sprayed on the fields in those days before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

I think it was about ten years ago that Gary and I spotted a solitary bobolink at the edge of the national forest near the village of Fence. It was like seeing an old friend.

In time, we would regularly see bobolinks in the north, but it was last summer that Dan Jach, town handyman and amateur birder, told us that bobolinks had taken up residence on Cooper Road, next to the Oneida Buffalo Farm.  Gary and I drove over and sure enough, there were half a dozen of them.

This spring, I kept going over to Cooper Road to see what was happening.  It was there that the brakes went out on my car earlier this spring.  Over and over I plagued Gary to stop.  Today, we were returning from a shopping expedition in Green Bay.  He was driving the Subaru and balked.  "It's still too early," he said. They only arrive with the bugs.

With a little pouting, I had my way.  I was right because there they were.  I think we saw four of the birds in all.

The bobolink is a member of the blackbird family but unlike the others, it is black underneath and white on top with that distinctive yellow cap. There is no way to make a mistake in identification.

Gary points out that one reason the bobolinks arrive so late is that they travel so far from south of the equator each autumn and making a round-trip of approximately 12,500 miles. One female, known to be at least 9 years old, made this trip annually with a total distance equal to traveling 4.5 times around the earth at the equator.  No wonder they take their time.  

So now they are here, bringing a childhood memory with them.