Willets at Ludington Harbor 7/9/2018

   Dave Dister left a voicemail late this morning about 7 Willets he had seen on the South Breakwater of Ludington Harbor.  I made it out there within the hour and found them still hanging together but moving occasionally to avoid the light pedestrian traffic.

   Bonus Bird - Piping Plover.  It was the first one that I have seen in Ludington this year.

   The leg bands show that this bird is not one of the breeding pair that nested on Stearns Beach in 2016.

 It has been over a month since my last post in part because of the loss of my best friend back in the first week of June,  After a brief illness my 13 year old dog Roscoe died.  He had found his way into a number of posts on this bird blog here is a link to those posts....Roscoe

  He was valedictorian of the PetSmart Obedience School Class of 2005.

  He was good friends with and watched over two of our cats Comet and.....

 ….the late Leo

even when Leo wasn't so friendly.

   He was never one to back away from a threat

Ended in a draw

This confrontation ended differently as he stole the turkey sandwich and eventually ended up humping his opponent. 

   He never quite got the hang of an Easter Egg Hunt.

 He got into his share of trouble.  After initially denying involvement in Curious George's demise.

   He had a hard time explaining his new wardrobe.

  He frequently displayed his athletic abilities

He was the Eric Ebron of Dog Frisbee

But the Barry Sanders of DFL

Lack of Depth

 Could have used some more depth of field to get both the hawk and moon in focus.  If I would have focused at 601 feet and stopped down to f/64 I could have had a depth of focus from 300' to infinity.

   More photos taken from the deck today.

Male Scarlet Tanager singing and posing for....

.....a more dignified Scarlet Tanager.

Red-breasted Nuthatch trying to hide

Red-tailed Hawk gaining altitude

Snowy Egret at Freeman Pond 5/20/2018

    Got a call from Linda Scribner late this morning to notify me of a Snowy Egret found by Shelly Green as she passed by Freeman Pond on US-31.  I headed right out there where Linda and her husband Chuck were watching the bird, as was Dave Dister who was on his phone getting the word out on a bird that hasn't been seen in the county in 41 years.

    It was visible almost motionless in the pond until it took off and flew nearly overhead and landed on the farside of the small pond at the Kubota dealer on the west side of US-31.
    This brought the bird closer as it preyed on small fish in the pond.

looks like my yard

   It later headed back across the road but not before allowing some flight shots in good lighting.

Two More Warbler Mornings

Northern Parula

   The last two mornings there has been a continuing influx of warblers in my yard.  Today I had ten species of them, including a first of the year Magnolia(unphotographed) which is the 100th bird species I've recorded in the yard this year. Last year I didn't hit 100 until October 22.  This year I hit that milestone before the first lawn cutting of the season (by six hours).

Chestnut-sided 

Nashville

American Redstart 

Blackburnian

Black and White

  Vireos are also zipping around the yard.

Blue-headed

   I think this next one might be a Philadelphia Vireo.   Please correct me if I'm wrong. Contact info is at the bottom of the page.

   Other birds included

Scarlet Tanager

Blue Jay

10 Warblers Species in the Yard

Female American Redstart

     All day long warblers stopped by to fuel up for their continuing migration. In all ten species were tallied.

Yellow Warbler

Cape May Warbler

Tennessee Warbler

  Besides the warblers shown above...Black-throated Green, Chestnut-sided, Bay-breasted, Northern Parula, Blackburnian and Yellow-rumped were also counted.

  Pine Siskins continue to mob my feeders to the point that their numbers raise a red-flag when entered on Ebird.  Today I logged 31 on my Ebird submission but that was only the ones I counted in and under one tree.

    Three or four Baltimore Orioles are hitting their feeders hard all day.

  The aforementioned Bay-breasted Warbler was the 98th species that I've seen in and around the yard this year.  Last year I didn't hit 98 until September 8.

Cerulean Warbler 5/13/2018

       The snow pile at the end of my street has been gone less than two weeks.  But the inconvenience of a prolonged winter is paying its dividends now (for me anyway).  Although leaf-out of the trees is a couple of weeks behind schedule the birds continued to march unabated toward their breeding grounds.

      Last spring, through a check on ebird, I discovered that there is a reliable Cerulean Warbler territory about 30 minutes from my house.  Last May, I took a couple of trips out there, heard two singing males but they remained hidden among the leaves in the Manistee National Forest canopy.  This year's delayed spring presented a more promising opportunity to view and photograph these elusive little guys.

   I was able to find three singing males but only the one in these photograph came lower than 50 feet off the ground.

    Through millions of years of evolution the battle between predator and prey has yielded a number of strategies.

   If your go-to move is to look like a twig.....your mom better have laid hundreds of eggs so that at least a couple of your siblings can carry on your dumb genes.

Game....Warbler