Sunday March 4 – Ed – Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years

This weekend has been kind of nasty for birding. Friday night and Saturday were crazy windy, gray, and cold. There have been reports of woodcocks just a little south of here so we thought there may be a chance of getting one. Saturday, right about sundown we went out to a local park that looks like prime woodcock territory. I know that if I was a woodcock looking to get lucky I would hang out there. Anyway, it was horribly windy and cold enough that even the most desperate woodcock wasn’t willing to “peent”.

So this cold gray morning found us in one of Mid-Michigan’s more uncivilized areas – downtown Lansing. A number of basically worthless organisms exist in Lansing. Mostly scurrying in and out of a white domed building, desperately trying to be important. They tend to come in two distinct herds, donkeys and elephants. Dominance between these two herds tends to cycle back and forth every couple years. In the most recent cycle the elephants have come to dominate the donkeys. Usually the dominance of one over the other ends up showing some form of mutualism and cooperation for the betterment of all. Not so much recently. The current crop of dominate elephants doesn’t seem interested in improving conditions for everyone. Seems their only purpose is to better their own, irritate the general population and do what they can to disparage the donkeys.

Lair of the worthless

We did have a reason for being in beautiful downtown Lansing. We got a new species, peregrine falcon. In an interesting adaption strategy these former cliff nesters have taken to tall buildings. The tallest building in Lansing is the Boji Tower. For the past several years peregrine falcons have nested on this 23 story building. In the summer you can watch them fly around feasting on the ample supply of pigeons.