Saturday, May 2

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Been
a busy and very hectic week or so. Lise and I went down to St. Louis to see
Stefan with an overnight stop in West Lafayette. We drove straight back from
St. Louis and I immediately continued for another three hours up to Traverse
City to attend a four day conference.

St.
Louis was fun. Stefan took us down closer to the Ozarks where we hit Council
Bluff Lake and Hughes Mountain Natural Area. Spring was well under way down
there.  Between us we got about 51 bird
species for the year. Plus I saw my first dragonfly of the year, I believe a
dusky clubtail. Lise now has 145 species for the year and I have 141. 

Getting close to the Ozarks. Not just signs and wonders my friend, but miracles too.

Stefan and Lise at Hughes Mountain Natural Area.

Stefan and Lise at Hughes Mountain Natural Area.

Lava flows at Hughes Mountain.

Hughes Mountain in black and white.

Spring
has finally started to hit this area. Wildflowers have popped out and yesterday
I saw my first dragonfly in Michigan, a common green darner. Migrant bird
species are starting to drop in. Today we did the field component a birding
workshop Lise is teaching for church. Always dicey when you plan something weather
dependent far in advance but we had fantastic weather. I pointed out a garter
snake to my group. One young man remarked that he had never seen a snake in the
wild. That one kind of floored me.

Dutchman’s breeches at Harris Nature Center.

After
birding we did lunch with Molly at a Lansing Old Town restaurant called “Meat”.
The name pretty much sums up the menu. They bill themselves as “Southern BBQ
and Carnivore Cuisine”. With 18 beers on tap and dishes like Trailer Park Bruschetta
and Meat Mountain, how can you go wrong? No scrapple though. Under Vegetarian
Options they list; coke, diet coke, cherry coke, sprite, mellow yellow, root
beer, mr. pibb, ginger ale, lemonade, and Iced Tea. The Lansing area had an earthquake
while we were eating but I didn’t feel anything. Apparently tremors from a 4.6
earthquake aren’t as strong as the tremors caused by a Meat Mountain moving
through your system.