We got back from San Diego just in time for a summer water polo tournament yesterday. In a first for us, Molly played a night tournament game in an outdoor pool. They played against some California team that flew in just to show us how lacking in water polo Michigan really is. Our girls lost but except for about a five minute stretch they were right with the California team. For a long time the score was 2 – 1. The sole goal we had was a little lob Molly got in. She’s done that shot before. The other polo parents started calling it the Molly Lob. During a break the coach told the team, “Stop shooting for that corner. It’s a dead corner. They have it covered and you can’t hit that corner. Molly’s the only person that can hit that corner.” They lost the game but we were happy.
We got some birding in today. A glossy ibis was reported down at Pte. Mouillee so Lise and I headed down to find it. Pte. Moo is a large area accessible only by walking or bicycle. Biking with a scope and camera on tripod is a bit more interesting than I want life to be, so I bought a bike trailer. Worked pretty well. I could haul the scope on a tripod, a camera on a tripod, and my camera bag. Apparently this trailer is sized just right to fit a cooler. So if we ever bike to an event requiring a cooler we’re set.
Ed and his bike trailer.
We got the glossy ibis as well as a snowy egret, short-billed dowitcher, and a red-headed woodpecker. The snowy egret was a real bonus. Made up for riding around on dusty berms in 80 plus degree weather. Saw some other cool things too, like a breeding plumage horned grebe, and pied-billed grebes and coots with young. Too cute for their own good. Lots of dragonflies too, including a large hatch of Halloween pennants. There were hundreds of them flying around.
Halloween pennant.
Another view of a Halloween pennant.
I’m now at 223 species for the year, and Lise is at 218. That’s 89.2% of the goal for me and 87.2% for Lise with 53.2% of the year gone. Most of the easy ones are gone now so it’s time for the real work to kick in.
The graph.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 