Getting Birdy Around Here 5/2/2020

   To paraphrase Glenn Danzig from the Misfits punk anthem 'Where Eagles Dare'(1979)...."Work down the street at night. But live where eagles dare". 

   From the first morning that I moved into this house and watched a Bald Eagle fly by at eye level as I was eating a bowl of Tony Tiger, I realized that I would get some great eagle photo-ops.  Now we just have to working on getting more photogenic fish into my photos.

  I can almost imagine the eagle singing the first line of the chorus(which can't be printed here) in the aforementioned song while the steelhead joins in for the second line. 

Eagle:"I ain't no #^$  &% (   * #*  of a    #(@*(!# "
Together: "You'd better think about it, Baby"

  At my previous house I would only see Brown Thrashers once or twice a year if at all but here they have been present everyday since they arrived on April 20.

Rose-breasted Grosbeak arrived April 29

Ruby-throated Hummingbird arrived May 1.

    Today I added 5 birds to the yard list bringing the total up to 88.

House Wren #84

Gray Catbird #85

Palm Warbler #86

Gadwall #87

   Not pictured Common Yellowthroat #88.

Marbled Godwit 4/19/2020

   This afternoon Dave Dister found a Marbled Godwit in a farm field on Colburn Rd just east of US-31. It is possibly the first April record for this species in Mason County.

  Besides the Godwit, the small flooded area of the field also attracted several Bonaparte's Gulls...

....and Greater Yellowlegs.

  This morning from my yard I saw groups of small passerines whose identity I couldn't determine visually even with the aid of binoculars.  Even though tracking the birds with my camera was a challange, through photographs I was able to determine that most if not all of the birds were Yellow-rumped Warblers.  I counted over 170 of them.

    Below is one of the 3 Bald Eagles that I saw fly over my yard this morning.

I live where eagles dare.

558 Flickers,This Must Be Some Sort of Record.

     Last Tuesday morning I counted 110 Northern Flickers migrating over my yard.  According to Dave Dister, compiler of the county bird records and author of recently published Birds of Mason County, the previous high daily count in Mason County was 89.  

   This morning as I was walking around my yard just before 8 AM, I started counting as Flickers once again were flying over in a steady stream of one or two at a time. When I got to 30 I looked at my phone and saw that only 10 minutes elapsed since I started counting. So I set up a chair on the north side of my yard and kept track of the number of Flickers traveling in the south to north migratory direction.  Within an hour I had beat the county record which I set on Tuesday and headed into uncharted territory, possibly a state record (at least according to ebird). Whitefish Point may have something to say about that.  By 11:30 the pace slowed dramatically but not until I had counted 542 of the yellow-shafted woodpeckers.  Over the early afternoon hours I added 16 more to bring the daily total to 558.

     The heavily overcast skies made it difficult to get any decent photos early on.......

......but in the 10 o'clock hour the Sun poked through momentarily and gave me some decent lighting to work with.

  For the second time this month I was able to observe 6 of the 7 woodpecker species that normally occur in Michigan's lower peninsula. On Friday the 3rd I missed the Pileated...but not today.

Pileated Woodpecker

Yellow-bellied Sapsucker

Downy Woodpecker

Red-bellied Woodpecker.

   The only woodpecker that I missed today was the Hairy, which I usually see a couple of times per week.

  Woodpeckers weren't the only birds of interest that I took poorly illuminated photos of today..

Common Loon

and another

Belted Kingfisher.

   A pair of Kingfishers may be nesting about 100' below my yard, down the bluff.  I frequently see them when I look over the edge.

    Last but not least.

Merlin

Remarkable Day of Home Sequestration 4/3/2020

Winter Wren

   When the month of April started my yardlist for the new house was at 46 species and I had just worked my last day for a while as my worksite went to minimum staffing on a volunteer basis. When the choice came of lead, follow or get out of the way.....I got the hell out of the way.
  On Wednesday April 1st I added an Eastern Phoebe to the yardlist when one perched on the rail of the deck and looked in our living room window.  It was too close to get a photo with the big lens so I had to wait for it to land a little farther away.

  Thursday I added 3 more birds to the list to get it up to an even 50. Including the two birds pictured below plus a few unphotographed Double Crested Cormorants.

Brown Creeper

Female Eastern Bluebird

  That brings us to today, the remarkable day that saw me add 12 birds to the yardlist. It started early when a Red-headed Woodpecker flew by.  Around noon a Yellow-Bellied Sapsucker briefly landed in a nearby tree and it left me one woodpecker(Pileated) short for the day of the set of seven members of the Picidae family that lives or passes through Mason County. Unfortunately I was only able to get shots of a Northern Flicker.

I added two sparrows....Chipping and American Tree.

American Tree Sparrow

   Besides the activity on the ground, a lot was happening overhead.

Sandhill Cranes

One of 35 Turkey Vultures that migrated through today

Northern Harrier

Common Loon

Greater Scaup

   Then a little later in the day three Mallards flew by.

   And 3 or 4 Golden-crowned Kinglets made their debut in my yard.  They brought the yard list species total to 62.

  I had 48 species during the daylight hours then I heard a Killdeer flying over when I went out around 9 pm to check out Venus as it passed through the Pleaides Star Cluster.  It had hazy clouds built up too much for me to get a photo of the planet but the International Space Station was an acceptable consulation prize.  

   Thanks to Matt McConnell for alerting me to the favorable ISS flyover.

More Rough-legs 3/15/2020

  An early afternoon ride around the reservoir at my worksite provided an opportunity to photograph a couple of Rough-legged Hawks.  The light morph above was more cooperative, while the more attractive dark morph below kept its distance.

Red-necked Grebe Ludington State Park 3/10/2020

  On Sunday Matt Geelhoed found a Red-Necked Grebe at Ludington State Park. I wasn't able to make it out there until this afternoon but easily relocated the bird and managed to get in position to get some decent photos

  On Sunday March 1 a Red-tailed Hawk made a close pass by my deck.

Rough-legged Hawks 2/23/2020

    Early this afternoon I rode around the reservoir at work in the slim hope of finding a Snowy Owl.  In previous winters Snowies have been frequently seen at that location but this season I've only heard of one sighting and that was back in November.
  As expected no owls were seen but a pair of Rough-legged Hawks made the ride worthwhile.

   At the same location last weekend I saw the overwintering Harlequin Duck in the lake near the powerhouse.

  WARNING : If you are an astronomically and geometrically challenged flat-earther this next part may cause an adverse reaction.

  A neat thing about living on the lake shore is that you can observe the effects of the curvature of the Earth simply by walking upstairs from the basement.  On January 7 from my ground-level basement I spotted a distant freighter that was significantly obscured by the horizon.

View from the basement

 When I went upstairs to get the camera I saw that from a 10' higher elevation much more of the freighter was visible.

View from the living room

 
   Below is a side by side comparison of the photos from different vantage points

 
  From the Boat Nerd freighter tracking website I was able to determine the freighter's distance to be 17.1 Nautical Miles or 19.68 Statute Miles.