Training in the Marshal Arts

It was a beautiful morning today, so Stacy and I took the kids to the Madrona Marsh Preserve in Torrance. Although I'd driven by it for 10+ years, I'd never actually been before. It looks small and a little sad from the road, so I didn't expect much, but once you get inside you realize its a pretty big place (43 acres!) with quite a few surprises.

We took the 10am nature walk and our volunteer tour guide Bill, a retired aerospace worker, seemed to love his job. He showed us the native plant gardens with all their wispy grasses and the sage and mallow and milkweed; then we went into the marsh proper. Its a "vernal" marsh, which will dry up completely by the end of the summer, and reappear in the winter with the seasonal rains. Nevertheless the place teems with critters. We saw a number of birds I'd never seen before: A red Phoebe, swooping down to snatch bugs in mid-flight, some white egrets, and a blue-bill duck hiding in the water under a poplar tree. We also saw a very furry white rabbit that seemed to be struggling in the heat. The guide informed us that fuzzy white rabbits were not indigenous to the marsh, but that we were likely seeing an unfortunate Easter present that proved more than its recipient could handle. Evidently they get dumped in the marsh fairly often and rarely live very long.

As we walked around the marsh the docent pointed out a pretty rare bird that had taken up residence there a couple of weeks ago, a white-face ibis. (Can you tell which is the picture I took, and which I stole from Wikipedia?)

As the tour went on it got to be quite hot, but there were frequent spots of shade, a few scattered benches and a well-placed water fountain. L was fascinated by all the flowers and birds and was always frustrated trying to spot frogs before they vanished into the bog. N couldn't decide whether he wanted to run free, ride in the stroller, on Daddy's shoulders, or in Mommy's arms - it ended up being Mommy's arms, which Mommy wasn't too thrilled about.

One particularly memorable event from the hike was an unprovoked attack by two rather evil looking black ducks. Evidently they were bad eggs (pun intended) who had muzzled their way into the marsh from Wilson Park, where they had grown accustomed to extorting bread crusts from innocent passersby. Had you been there around 12:30 you would have had the no-doubt amusing opportunity of seeing me run like a terrified girl from the two satanic creatures.

(OK, so maybe I fudged with Photoshop a little
bit on this last one, but they really were evil!)