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.
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.
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.
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.
