6 Day Weekend

Day 1

Roadside Wood Duck at Lake Erie Metropark on Wednesday

Day 2
        The following birds were at Crane Creek State Park in Ohio last Thursday.

Palm Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Marsh Wren

Magnolia Warbler

Black-throated Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Ovenbird

Day 3
 Friday I was back home and a short walk with Nico resulted in two new additions to the yardlist.  First I noticed a Veery (#124) in my wooded lot next to my house.

   and just a minute later as we walked up the driveway, I heard and then visually located a Black-throated Warbler(#125).

First of the season Black and White Warbler in the yard.

Day 5
   This morning at Ludington State Park I saw a pair of Piping Plovers. The blinged out male is shown below.

   Later in the morning a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird posed for photos at my feeding station.

Unnatural belly color is the reflection of the orange Oriole feeder.

Baltimore Oriole waiting his turn at the feeder.

    This evening I attempted to photograph the sunset phenomena known as the green flash.  The conditions weren't optimal so just a little bit of green fringe was visible in the photos at the top of the Sun.

Orchard Oriole and Red-throated Loon 5/6/2019

     Dave Dister alerted me to a pair of Orchard Orioles that showed up at a Hamlin Lake area residence.  I made a quick call to the homeowner and made arrangements to photograph the birds.  One of the birds was at the feeder as I arrived and posed for somewhat distant photos in a variety of settings.

  Shortly after I arrived home, Dave called again to tell me that a Red-throated Loon was making its way through Pere Marquette Lake to Ludington Harbor.  I arrived there within 10 minutes and got some close photos before boat traffic forced the loon to the far shore.

     Before the calls from Dave the photo sequence below was my bird story of the day. 

  That speck in the field of white in the photo below is a Sharp-shinned Hawk flying at a great height above my yard.  (A quick calculation indicates that the Sharpie's height was roughly 1000')

   Immediately after I took the photo the small accipiter went into a stoop.

   It headed seemingly directly toward me  but ended passing about 20 feet over my head as it attempted to take one of the birds that had been visiting my feeders.

  According to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology Sharp-shinneds do not stoop on prey from high overhead.  I think this guy didn't get that memo.

Pine Warbler 5/3/2019

   With temperatures only reaching highs in the 50's, spring migration is off to a slow start.  The Pine Warbler pictured below is only the second warbler species (Yellow-rumped was the other) I've seen in the yard so far this year.

   All aboard for pun-time

   I have some landscapers who have been dethatching my lawn.  The work is going slower than expected but this guy works for....

 ...a couple of bucks,

 ....who in turn work for peanuts

   Have to admire the grace and agility of the deer who have been raiding this platform feeder all winter and have yet to knock it down or even cause it to lean.

Some Days You're the Vulture....

....and some days you're the raccoon. 

 
  On a more photogenic note, on April 24 I had three Common Loons fly low over the house and was able to get some decent photos as they zipped by.

Van's the Man (who found the Harris's Sparrow) 4/19/2019

   Well, my Christmas Bird Count partner Van Burmeister did it again.  He found another great bird in Mason County.  This time on a morning visit to Ludington State Park he found a Harris' Sparrow at the feeders that Dave Dister installed and maintains at the warming shed near the park entrance.

   To recap in the past 3 years Van had two county firsts in his yard.

 In September 2016 a White-winged Dove.

   Then in December 2018 he reported a Black-Headed Grosbeak that drew birders from across the state to his neighborhood.

  Also in July 2016 he beat me by an hour on discovering a Common Eider in Ludington Harbor.  He actually called me when he saw it but he had a bad signal and he couldn't get his message to me.  He was using a borrowed phone with a Maine area code so I kept hanging up on his subsequent calls that I thought were from a persistent telemarketer. 

   I guess I can consider myself fortunate that he didn't scoop me on the Scissor-tailed Flycatcher that I found on the day that I met him in October 2014, when Van was a strapping young lad in his early 80's.

 

Snowy Sunday 4/14/2019

     It was cloudy and cold in west Michigan this weekend.   On Saturday at least a dozen Common Loons were patrolling Pere Marquette Lake.

   On Sunday just before a predicted moderate snowfall began, I took a ride around my work site and found....

Long-tailed Duck

American Kestrel

Horned Grebe

     As I finished driving around work a light snow started to fall.  I took this photo as it started to cover the lawn.

     It intensified quickly. The portrait of Nico was taken an hour and a half later when about 3" of snow had fallen.

   As the snow piled up in my yard, bird activity increased around the feeders.

    This morning after work I raced out to Ludington State Park to try to photograph birds before the snow melted in the bright sunlight.

    This female Northern Cardinal didn't let the snow stop her from gathering nesting material.

   Eastern Phoebes are among the earliest flycatchers to migrate north. I was able to find two of them who weren't finding a whole lot of insects.