Unofficial, Unsanctioned, Unqualified Hawk Watcher 8/14/2020

     A year ago yesterday Matt McConnell noticed a movement of Red-tailed Hawks passing over the city of Ludington.  The next day I drove up to vantage point at my work and saw 50 more migrate by in an hour. 

  Since then I have moved from a house in the woods to a lake house with a great expanse of sky.  I have been looking forward to the late summer raptor migration since the day we moved in. I spent a little while in the yard yesterday afternoon but only saw 1 Red-tailed, along with a Merlin and an American Kestrel (which was a new yardbird #137).  

   Today was a different story as I saw 138 migrating raptors.   I initally thought all the distant buteos were Red-tails but later when I reviewed the photos I noticed some were Broad-wingeds which were also new to the yardlist.

Redtail and Broadwing

                                               Red-tail and Immature Bald Eagle

Two Upper birds are Broadwings the lowest one is a Redtail.

   Seems whenever two Bald Eagles ride the same thermal one will have to remind the other to social distance.

   An Osprey was also an unexpected surprise. 

 

   Here are some photos from the last couple of days.

The Bluebirds are wreaking havoc on the local butterflies and moths....

They only laid two eggs in their new nestbox, after their first nesting effort was cut short when a storm blew down their previous box in June.  Only one egg has hatched.

Eagle with its lunch.

Yesterday's new yardbird.  American Kestrel

   What appears to be a monstrous Walking Stick......

......looks less formidable when placed on a more natural setting. 

Beautiful Spider......Marbled Orbweaver 9/13/2019

  Beautiful spider...now there are two words you don't expect to see together.  But I believe it applies to the female Marbled Orbweaver that has set up shop between the rails of my deck.

Late Monarch plus birds this week

I was surprised to see a very late Monarch Butterfly this afternoon at Ludington State Park.

  Also at the park today was a small group of Buffleheads

  Earlier in the week out on the south pier of Ludington Harbor I saw this Merlin

This Dunlin

  and this Sanderling

  At Buttersville Park there was a Ruby-Crowned Kinglet

  and a few Tree Sparrows.

   Back at the State Park  I saw this standoffish Red Squirrel

As I watched him on the stage my hands were clenched in fists of rage

Exit stage five

 
     A Monarch Butterfly larva goes through 5 instars (developmental stages) before it matures into its adult phase. Perhaps you have even seen an educational video of a butterfly emerging from its chrysalis.  Equally fascinating but less hyped is the 15 minute process in which the caterpillar becomes the chrysalis.   While archiving old photos yesterday I came across a folder of still photos taken back in 2005 that I intended to make into a video clip one day.  Today was that day. 


Below is the time lapse video that shows how the caterpillar gets from this

To this.

  Here is the video

  One of the more interesting frames of the video occurs about one third of the way through the pupation process, just as the future Monarch's motion goes from springing like a slinky to a vigorous squirming like Houdini escaping a straight-jacket  At this point the skin-shed caterpillar's form is still discernible while the distinctly butterfly parts are taking shape.

5/22/2013 Crane Creek

   On May 22, I took my final spring trip to Crane Creek and photographed the following birds.

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Wilson's Warbler

Spotted Sandpiper

Female Magnolia Warbler

Scarlet Tanager

Eastern Kingbird

Canada Warbler

Female American Redstart

Magnolia Warbler