Make that Three Snowies

      I can hear it now. "Snowy Owls? Is that all you got?" Well if these Arctic interlopers are going to keep crossing paths with me, I've got to keep blogging about them.

    This morning I stayed over into the daylight hours for a meeting and afterward took advantage of the sunny skies and light winds to check if last week's owls were still up on the reservoir.

      At the four mile mark of the six mile, one-way loop I spotted two birds atop of a small structure.  These appear to be young females that I have been seeing up there.  One of the Snowies stayed put as I passed the structure.

    A little further ahead as I passed a transformer I noticed a young male in my rear-view mirror.

   Other birds of interest included a flock of 14 White-phase Snow Geese, that circled the reservoir for about 10 minutes.

  A single Blue-morph Snow Geese hung out with the Canada Geese.

   

Rough-legged Hawk

    After I made it home, Dave Dister called to report a Glaucous Gull at Ludington Harbor.

Second Snowy Owl

   I stopped by my work on my day off to see if the Snowy Owl found there last week was still present.  It was and it brought a friend, a second Snowy.  Only one bird was close enough to photograph.

   Also present in the reservoir were a Pied-billed and Horned Grebe.

   The Snowy Owl stood its ground with an angry Crow, until the corvid realized that the Owl wasn't fazed.

  The owl stood by as I was heading down back ramp, which allowed me to increase the distance between us and still face her head on.

 

     On the lower reservoir road a handful of bucks contemplated a rearranging of the accepted hierarchy. 

10-pt Buck- " I'm going to let that guy know what I think of him......"

".....Maybe tomorrow".

Next up the buck who looks like he got his rack at the factory seconds outlet. 

He better walk before he makes him run.

First Snowy 11/10/2017

   The change of seasons from fall to winter occurred yesterday afternoon, when the south wind which pushed morning temperatures to the mid-40's,  shifted to the northwest and dropped the late afternoon temps into the upper 20's.  In the evening, lake-effect snow showers dropped about an inch of snow on the area while the trees were still deciding if they should drop their leaves even though the complete color change has yet to occur.

My yard

   The clash of seasons gave me the opportunity to  photograph two of my favorite subjects (snow and fall colors) simultaneously.

Leaves at Ludington State Park

Buttersville Park

  At Buttersville Park, which is on the grounds of my employer, I ran into my coworker Brad who told me that the Snowy Owl that he found yesterday was still up on the reservoir road.

  About an hour later I drove the upper reservoir road and found the Snowy and a Dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk at eye level. 

Cackling and Snow Geese at Work

3 White-morph Snow Geese and a Cackling Goose in flight

  After an unsuccessful chase of a late Blue-headed Vireo that Dave Dister found at the State Park this morning, my wife and I drove to the upper reservoir road at my worksite.  As we slowly drove the upper loop, I noticed flocks of Canada Geese coming to land on the pond.  Scanning the flocks I saw 3 White-morph Snow Geese following the Canadas in from the surrounding cornfields.  

Blue Morph Snow Goose

   When I examined the raft of geese that landed I found one Blue-morph Snow Goose.  It wasn't until I downloaded the photos onto my computer that I noticed that there were at least 7 Cackling Geese interspersed among their larger cousins.

Four Cackling Geese among Canada Geese

    Before we got to the upper road, a handsome Dark-morph Rough-legged Hawk flew by.  I was hoping to get eye-level shots of it with the 200+ feet of elevation gain that the upper road provides.  But the bird was nowhere in sight when we got up there.

Dark-morph Rough-legged  

   The only raptor viewed from the high road was this young Bald Eagle.

Immature Bald Eagle

Red-necked Grebe Ludington State Park 11/3/2017

   Yesterday at Ludington State Park Dave Dister found a Red-necked Grebe in Hamlin Lake off shore of the Island Trail .  This morning the bird was near the same location (past the second bridge), although a little more distant than yesterday.

  The following birds were in my yard later in the afternoon.

Dark-eyed Junco

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Orange-crowned Warbler

Better background and lighting

White-crowned Sparrow

   

November Warblers 11/2/2017

Orange-crowned Warbler

       The day after the calendar flipped to November I found a couple of warblers zipping around the canopy of oaks in my yard this morning.  The Orange-crowned Warbler may be a late fall date for the county.

Orange-crowned upside-down

   Also feeding on survivors of a single light frost was a Yellow-rumped Warbler. It has about four weeks before it would qualify for a county late fall date.

Yellow-rumped Warbler