Monday, January 7

Lise had a meeting over in Port Huron so I tagged along. I got 10 species and Lise got 9. She missed common merganser while in her meeting but she should be able to pick one up fairly easily. Her meeting was right on the St. Clair River and we also birded Lake Huron a bit. We got bald eagle, long-tailed duck, red-breasted merganser, common merganser, golden eye, bufflehead, mallard, ring-billed gull, herring gull, and greater scaup.

Most of these fall into the “you will see them if you go to the right habitat” category. Long-tailed duck was a good one since they are only around in the winter and you need to be on the coast to see them. Rarely would they be inland. Bald eagles are an interesting case. When I first started birding they were still listed as an endangered species. It was a big deal to see one in Indiana, or most places in the lower 48. I remember volunteering on the hacking program to reintroduce them to Indiana. Now, it is pretty hard to not see one. I fully expect to see one somewhere in Michigan, without trying to find them. I kind of like them in that status.

Port Huron is situated at the very southern point of Lake Huron. The lake drains through the St Clair River into Lake St. Clair and eventually continues the passage through Lakes Erie and Ontario and finally out to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway. You can sit by the St. Clair River and these big freighters come steaming down river. The river isn’t all that wide so there isn’t much room for navigational error.

Lise looking over Lake Huron.

Lise again.

The town looks like it has seen better days but it’s still kind of interesting. Some really nice old buildings and homes. Definite nautical overtones, with monuments to sunken ships and lost sailors. The park where Lake Huron enters the St. Clair River had a Border Patrol car in the parking lot. Guess they were waiting for any Canadians that may try to swim across to the good ol’ U.S. of A. Don’t know why they would unless they wanted the privilege of going broke paying for their health care instead of getting that socialized medicine. Or they might be smuggling in that un-American Canadian bacon. It’s actually ham you know, not real bacon. If they can’t do bacon right, God knows what they would do to scrapple.

It was so cold that someone put a flannel robe and ear muffs on a monument.

We have 31 species for the year so far. Over 10% of the goal in the very first week of the year. Now is when overconfidence sets in. When I was a defense contractor there was an adage about designing aircraft. 90% of the effort and cost comes from getting the last 10% of aircraft performance. That was pretty much my experience last year. That last 10% took a lot more effort than the first 10%.