Yellow-Crowned Night Heron Mason County 4/18/2022

   

    Yesterday Donna and John Haack found a Yellow-crowned Night Heron in Grant Township.  It is the first record of this southern bird in Mason County. Today with Brian Brosky guiding me by texts I got to the correct location on Nurnberg Rd, where I was fortunate enough to find another birder Joe Lipar, who was able to point me right at the seemingly glowing yellow crown of the wayward heron about 50 yards from the road.

  That's enough road birding.  Here's what has been visiting me at my house lately...

April 11 brought...

Belted Kingfisher

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Peregrine Falcon

 On April 12 I saw...

Northern Flicker

Purple Finch

Flock of Scoters

Mostly White-winged but not always 
Black Scoter in yellow circle and Surf Scoter in the red.

And on April 13 the south wind brought the first of the year....

Northern Harrier

White-Crowned Sparrow

Brown Thrasher

As well as a Common Loon.

  So far for the year I've seen 95 bird species from the yard which puts me about 2 weeks ahead of last year when I didn't hit that total until May 1.

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.

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

   

Winter Birds Arriving 10/23/16

Lapland Longspur

     Time to blow out the sprinkler lines,tune up the snowblower and dig out the snow tires because the winter birds have arrived.  Drove around the reservoir after work this morning and found the above Lapland Longspur and a flock of 15 Snow Buntings.

Snow Bunting

Horned Grebe

Horned Lark

  Last Sunday at the South Breakwater of Ludington Harbor I found some lingering warm weather birds..... 3 Dunlin, a pair of PalmWarblers and a couple of dozen Yellow-rumped Warblers.

Dunlin

Palm Warbler

White-throated Sparrow

Golden-crowned Kinglet at Ludington State Park last Sunday

Two Wild Turkeys that blocked my driveway when I arrived home on Friday.

Sable Dunes Audubon Society Field Trip - Ludington State Park 10/17/15

   This morning I met up with the Sable Dunes Audubon Society at Ludington State Park for their field trip led by Dave Dister.  The chilly air and moderate north winds dampened expectations, but Dave's familiarity with the park helped make the outing productive and enjoyable.

Hermit Thrush

Ruby-crowned Kinglet

Golden-crowned Kinglet

Dark-eyed Junco

Flock of Redheads

   My shoot-first-ID-them-later approach to birding caught a Lesser Scaup among the flock of Redheads that may have been overlooked without the photo.

Lesser Scaup to the upper right

Rusty Blackbird

White-breasted Nuthatch

Downy Woodpecker

Eastern Phoebe 

Red-headed Woodpecker

Great Blue Heron

  Photos from earlier in the week

Orange-crowned Warbler at Buttersville Park

   This caterpillar is one of many that repelled down silk threads out of my oak trees the past few weeks.  Its hard to get a sense of scale from this photo, but this larvae is the size of a man's ear....

...more specifically FDR's ear as it appears on a US dime.

   I discussed these caterpillars with Dave Dister last week when I ran into him at Ludington Harbor and he proceeded to point out a cocoon one had made on my car.
  This one is on the rim of one of my tires.

   And these are inside the rear driver-side door.