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.