Pointe Mouillee State Game Area (Pte. Moo) closes for the hunting season so we went down for the last weekend with Barb and the martyred Ellen. Who, while we were diligently studying yet another semipalmated sandpiper wandered off with her camera and came back with pictures of a sora. What’s this bird Barb?
Doing Pte. Moo
Soras, found by Ellen.
We did get some new species for the year, mostly thanks to Barb’s tenacity. She found and identified both a Baird’s sandpiper and a white-rumped sandpiper. No easy task when all peep sandpipers look alike at first glance and you’re dealing with definitive field guide descriptions like; forages on the dry side of the flock, relatively pale headed with buffy tones, slender tapered appearance, body appears long and tapered, slightly longer and more drooping bill, crouching posture, usually plain brown plumage.
Pte. Moo, trying to simulate a tidal flat. The little brown things in the puddle are peep sandpipers.
It’s out there somewhere. (Picture by Ellen)
Here’s looking at you kid. (Picture by Ellen)
We also got stilt sandpiper, yellow-headed blackbird, and I got a black-crowned night heron. The down side of the trip is that I feel obligated to take Wilson’s phalarope off my list. I was sure I saw three of them my last Pte. Moo trip. For better or worse we saw three stilt sandpipers in the same area acting almost, but not quite, like Wilson’s phalaropes. Damn. I should’ve got out the scope last time.
Looking at distant small, brown, slightly tapered things, with a bill that droops slightly. Might be a bit buffy too.
After Pte. Moo we hit Diamond Jim Brady’s in Novi for dinner. Where I heard a waitress say to her clients, “Do you like your fish to taste like fish? The scallops taste like scallops but the salmon tastes like fish” I’m still having trouble getting the deeper meaning of that one. Seems like something pretty obvious so there has to be more to it. Personally I prefer my fish to taste like chicken.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 