Three Day Wonder

   The Red-Headed Woodpecker that became the 109th bird on my yardlist has perfect attendence so far for the month of May, as it showed up for the third straight day.

   At noon I took my camera to the South Pier of Ludington Harbor and caught some White-winged Scoters  scooting north out over the lake.

    Other birds of interest were this handsome Horned Grebe...

 ...and this Spotted Sandpiper.

     Still waiting for a push of warblers through the yard.

Woodpecker Heptad Complete

    There are seven species of woodpeckers that have been recorded in Mason County.  Up until yesterday I had tallied six of them (Downy, Hairy, Red-bellied, Pileated, Northern Flicker and Yellow-bellied Sapsucker) on my yard list.  The remaining species was the boldly marked Red-headed Woodpecker.

   I suspected one would show up one day because they nest less than 5 miles away at Ludington State Park.  Yesterday the doubly outstanding (outstanding adj def. 1- prominent, conspicuous, striking. def. 2 - remaining to be dealt with) picidae was seen momentarily in one of my oaks.  Unfortunately, by the time I grabbed the camera all I saw was the white wing-patches as it flew toward the next block.

  Today as I got out of my car after a twelve hour shift I heard its hoarse tchur call coming from my neighbor's yard.  As I hurried into the house to get my camera it headed down to one of my suet feeders and I was able to take a few drab, long distance shots to document the visit.

Piping Plovers and Early Oriole

  The pair of Piping Plovers that nested (verified by legbands) on Stearns Beach last year have returned.  I spotted them on Monday at the north pier of Ludington Harbor.

   Besides the Plovers, a couple of Ring-billed Gulls and a Caspian Tern the only other birds seen from the pier were Red-breasted Mergansers.

  This morning I drove around and found a small group of Blue-winged Teals in the pond at Freeman and US-31.

Peaceful courtship

Incoming.

And there she goes.

A confrontation ensues

Starts with a jab

then quickly escalates 

I lost track of who's who at this point

This guy concedes.

  My wife spotted a Baltimore Oriole sipping at the hummingbird feeder this morning. A few minutes later it returned and I fired off three shots before I had a chance to check camera settings.   This resulted in blurry overexposed images taken at 1/15 of a second.  I reset the camera to more acceptable settings but the Oriole did not return. 

  This was the first April Oriole that I've had at either my current home or my old house in the Wayne County.

Broad-winged Hawk 4/19/2017

   A brief flurry of migrating raptors flew over my yard just after noon yesterday.  The highlight was the first Broadwing of the season.

   Usually passing Sandhill Cranes are heard approaching before they clear the trees but with a new house being constructed a couple lots over this small flock almost snuck by.

  A pair of low flying Turkey Vultures came by to check on my 17 year-old blind and deaf cat.

Patience.

Pine Warbler 4/18/2017

    I think I've been hearing at least one Pine Warbler around the yard for the past few days.  Today it came out in the open for a couple of minutes and I was able to get a few shots of it.

  It was only the second Pine Warbler that I've seen from the yard and it arrived six days earlier than last year.

   Speaking of birds that I've only seen twice in the yard, a Eastern Towhee stopped by last week for a photo shoot.

    The local Pileated Woodpecker hadn't visited the yard since February but he came by yesterday to destroy a suet cake.

Birds at Work 4/9/2017

Ruff in Muskegon 4/7/2017 w/map and video

   Earlier this week a Ruff, a rare Eurasian shorebird was found at the Wastewater Treatment Plant in Muskegon.  I made the trip down there this morning and was able to observe the bird after a birder from Illinois pointed me in the right direction.

  Although the bird's distance was less than ideal, I was able to get decent photos with my 500mm and 1.4x teleconverter.

Barking orders at Lesser Yellowlegs and Dunlin.

  Here is a video of the Ruff feeding.

   Below is a map of the Treatment Plant and a detail showing where the bird was located this morning.

Map of Muskegon Wastewater Treatment Plant

Detail of map showing Ruff's location today

  Here is a map lifted from wikipedia that shows the Ruff's normal range.  The blue represents its non-breeding winter range while the yellow surrounding the Baltic Sea and topping Russia looks like a presidential comb-over.

                             

  Also in the data dump from my camera were some photos taken from my deck on Saturday.

Dark-morph Red-tailed

Rough-legged in April

Local Red-Shouldered Hawk

Red-bellied Woodpecker.