Sharp-tailed Sandpiper, Muskegon 10/5/2019

    On Thursday, Roger Hagerman found a Sharp-tailed Sandpiper at the Muskegon Wastewater Treatment Facility. It is only the third time this species has been seen in Michigan (the first was also at this location back in August 2016).

Pectoral (left) and Least (right)

   My work site was quite birdy on Friday afternoon.  The American Golden Plover was one of two up on the reservoir.

 

Red-tailed Hawk

   Down on the lower reservoir road there was  a good variety of birds passing through....

Orange-crowned Warbler

   ...with several birds choosing to pose on the barbed-wire fence.

American Pipit

Eastern Bluebird

Lincoln's Sparrow

Eastern Pheobe

6 Day Weekend

Day 1

Roadside Wood Duck at Lake Erie Metropark on Wednesday

Day 2
        The following birds were at Crane Creek State Park in Ohio last Thursday.

Palm Warbler

Blackpoll Warbler

Marsh Wren

Magnolia Warbler

Black-throated Warbler

Chestnut-sided Warbler

Ovenbird

Day 3
 Friday I was back home and a short walk with Nico resulted in two new additions to the yardlist.  First I noticed a Veery (#124) in my wooded lot next to my house.

   and just a minute later as we walked up the driveway, I heard and then visually located a Black-throated Warbler(#125).

First of the season Black and White Warbler in the yard.

Day 5
   This morning at Ludington State Park I saw a pair of Piping Plovers. The blinged out male is shown below.

   Later in the morning a male Ruby-throated Hummingbird posed for photos at my feeding station.

Unnatural belly color is the reflection of the orange Oriole feeder.

Baltimore Oriole waiting his turn at the feeder.

    This evening I attempted to photograph the sunset phenomena known as the green flash.  The conditions weren't optimal so just a little bit of green fringe was visible in the photos at the top of the Sun.

Willets at Ludington Harbor 7/9/2018

   Dave Dister left a voicemail late this morning about 7 Willets he had seen on the South Breakwater of Ludington Harbor.  I made it out there within the hour and found them still hanging together but moving occasionally to avoid the light pedestrian traffic.

   Bonus Bird - Piping Plover.  It was the first one that I have seen in Ludington this year.

   The leg bands show that this bird is not one of the breeding pair that nested on Stearns Beach in 2016.

 It has been over a month since my last post in part because of the loss of my best friend back in the first week of June,  After a brief illness my 13 year old dog Roscoe died.  He had found his way into a number of posts on this bird blog here is a link to those posts....Roscoe

  He was valedictorian of the PetSmart Obedience School Class of 2005.

  He was good friends with and watched over two of our cats Comet and.....

 ….the late Leo

even when Leo wasn't so friendly.

   He was never one to back away from a threat

Ended in a draw

This confrontation ended differently as he stole the turkey sandwich and eventually ended up humping his opponent. 

   He never quite got the hang of an Easter Egg Hunt.

 He got into his share of trouble.  After initially denying involvement in Curious George's demise.

   He had a hard time explaining his new wardrobe.

  He frequently displayed his athletic abilities

He was the Eric Ebron of Dog Frisbee

But the Barry Sanders of DFL

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.