Natural Flyers - First Birding Trip of the Year Along the Mississippi River Reveals Bird Migration Around St. Louis

By Carmelo Turdo

It is winter once again in the Midwest, and that brings with it large numbers of migrating birds along the waterways of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers in the St. Louis area. The Aero Experience regularly features these natural flyers in our winter season coverage, and we are off to a great start this year. Last week we did some scouting to three local wildlife areas - Audubon Center at Riverlands in West Alton, MO and along the Mississippi River at Alton and Grafton, IL. Here we feature a selection of the migrating birds we observed in just a few hours: trumpeter swans, Canada geese, ring-billed gulls (residents) and bald eagles. We will incorporate more natural flyer posts into our winter story rotation over the next several months.