A WALK IN A MARSH (10/11/02)

Marshes on Cape Cod come in two types —saltwater and freshwater. Most people who live here are quite familiar with the saltwater marsh. It is expansive, easy to look out over and often adorned with one or two stately great blue herons. Also, saltwater marshes are fairly numerous.

Freshwater marshes, on the other hand, are surprisingly scarce on the Cape. Also, they frequently are in private hands, have no access or for other reasons are frustratingly unapproachable. And when you can access them, they are often difficult to gain entry because they are full of aquatic plants covering a muddy bottom. Walking in such a place is both uncomfortable to us humans and damaging to the marsh itself.

There is, however, a freshwater marsh in Yarmouthport, along Weir Road, which is both accessible and negotiable on foot. This marsh is a former cranberry bog which has grown up in cattails and other marsh plants. Since it was once a cranberry bog, it is crisscrossed by dikes which can be walked on (but not too easily!) to allow entrance to the marsh and also minimize damage to the plants therein.

I decided to walk into this marsh early one morning recently. The vegetation was dripping with dew and soon my lower clothing was soaked. Undeterred, I plodded on. The poison ivy was a fine crimson color as were some of the rosa rugosae leaves. My first birds of the marsh came as I walked beside a shallow stream. Up from the stream bed flew three or four Wilson’s snipe, a name that has recently been reassigned by the American Ornithological Union from the recent common snipe to the name it once held. Informally, in the past it was also known as Jack snipe. Snipes’ 2 1/2” long bills allow them to probe in the mud of a marsh.

Snipe are shorebirds with a totally contradictory name, as they are never found at the shore, at least on Cape Cod. Snipe are very difficult to see until they are flushed, as they freeze when they sense a human's or predator’s approach, and then, at the last second, spring into the air with an erratic zigzag flight as they utter an unmusical squeak that sounds like “scape! ‘scape!” Their flight then levels off, after which they suddenly pitch downward to land in a distant part of the marsh.

These are their typical habits, so we must accept and enjoy them as best we can on their terms. Snipe were probably hunted successfully on Cape Cod in the past, but I doubt that anybody guns for them nowadays here. I would have to admire anybody who can get a successful shot at their twisting flight, although accounts of phenomenal amounts of snipe harvested a hundred and fifty years ago seem unbelievable in light of their relative scarcity today. Nonetheless records show that one man over a period of twenty years killed sixty-nine thousand, eighty-seven snipe. Market hunters followed the sport as a business, day after day, wherever and whenever snipe were numerous, often amassing scores of snipe in one day.

Marsh birds, while often hidden, tend to give away their presence through their vocalizations, and this was true of the next bird I came across, a swamp sparrow. This bird has a beautiful trilling song, but it is not delivered in the fall. This time of year they have nothing more than a sharp chip note. But this note is actually quite distinctive and easy to learn; once learned, you have the pleasure of knowing when this handsome dark sparrow is nearby. Eventually several swamp sparrows sat up on some marsh vegetation where I could study their soft, earthy coloration through binoculars.

Sparrows won't blow you away with gaudy or glitzy plumage; rather, they have a simple, understated elegance which makes them all the more appealing, at least to my eye. Swamp sparrows in the fall in a freshwater marsh are feeding on seeds, and I like to look around to see perhaps what sort of seed-bearing marsh plant they are feeding on. I have read that they especially like the seeds of vervain, smart weed and sedges.

Despite the snipe and the swamp sparrows, the bird of the outing was a rail. I had seen and heard Virginia rails in this marsh many times, so I was curious to see if I could find one on this bright October morning. Again, they often vocalize unknowingly betraying their presence deep in the marsh, so if you know their oink-oink-oink sound, you can have the delight of just knowing the rail is there. As I tried to listen for the rail, I became quite aware of the loud hum of morning traffic of the not-so-near Route 6 and the almost constant revving overhead of small planes. I think these are background sounds we accommodate to until we begin consciously to listen for something. But, despite the noise intrusion, I was able to hear one or two Virginia rails, so I left the marsh pleased to know a small population of these birds were still at their old haunts. I have often regarded the rail as the premier bird of a freshwater marsh, so a marsh without one is to my mind severely lacking.

I have nothing against saltwater marshes, but freshwater marshes have something special about them. I hope you can find and get to know one.

GRAPHIC: Wilson's (Common) Snipe