Been a busy, but productive week. Now that it doesn’t get dark until 6:00, we have some time for after work birding. Tuesday Lise and I went to Rose Lake and cruised some local roads, looking for field birds and hopefully some Bohemian waxwings. We struck out on that group but we did end up with great views of a sharp-shinned hawk. For you non-birders, I am not making these names up.
Yesterday we went back to Rose Lake hoping for the Bohemian waxwings. No luck on them but we did get bluebirds and Lise got great looks at a Northern harrier flying over. We also saw chickadees gnawing down on another carcass. I don’t know if that is normal behavior for chickadees or only something peculiar to Rose Lake chickadees. This strikes me as a bit Hitchcockian. I’m thinking of throwing a dead cat out by our feeders to see if our neighborhood chickadees are carnivores too. I wonder if they’ll eat scrapple.
After Rose Lake we cruised around the fields around MSU and found a flock of horned larks, snow buntings, and Lapland longspurs.
Mixed flock playing in traffic.
Lapland longspur. Documentary photo shot out the car window. Next year I focus on pictures, not numbers.
Today I had high hopes for getting something productive done but things didn’t quite work out that way. First I went to Fenner Nature Center to try for pictures of a Townsend’s solitaire that has been hanging out there. The bird was a no-show while I was there. Not a totally unproductive time though. I got house finches and a Cooper’s hawk while waiting for the varmint to show up. And the male cardinals are starting to get frisky. I saw six of them around a female trying to court her. Pretty optimistic considering there is still snow on the ground.
Hey baby, hey baby.
Here I am girls.
I went home and happened to check the listserves. Someone reported Bohemian waxwings at the Pickney Rec Area (about 45 minutes away) and a Ross’s goose another half hour away. I should say, another half hour if you actually know where you are going. Lise and Molly were going shoe shopping so I decided to blow off my workout and some digital darkroom to up the species count. Swim a mile or go birding? Tough choice but I guess we all know the answer to that one.
Went to the waxwing location and found them after about five minutes. I spotted the flock up in a tree and trotted back to the car for the scope. It was then I realized that I forgot to put the scope in the car. Saying “oh darn” under my breath I went back to ID them with binoculars. It took a good 15 – 20 minutes to finally distinguish that there were Bohemian waxwings mixed in the usual cedar waxwings.
Mixed waxwing flock.
Heading out to chase the Ross’s goose I had one of those Buddhist “everything happens for a purpose” moments. About a quarter mile away I saw a hawk fly in. As I got close enough for a good look I saw it was a red-shouldered hawk, not the red-tailed hawk I initially thought. If I had the scope with me I would have IDed the Bohemians in about a minute and been out of there, never seeing the red-shouldered. This is a good one to get. They nest here in Michigan but it isn’t a given that you will see one.
Then it was down to Little Lake to find the Ross’s goose. Little Lake is very little and surrounded office buildings and condos. I waited about an hour behind some office complex but the goose never showed up. I did get American coot, American black duck and lesser scaup while waiting for the Ross’s goose.
So the Michigan counts now stand at 75 for me and 70 for Lise. She has 71 species but that includes a trip to Indiana. We both have species that the other doesn’t have, but these are fairly common ones. So our counts should start equalizing over time. The first good thaw around here she will get all the duck species I have. Eventually I’ll get the neighborhood Carolina wren that she has.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 