Wednesday, January 11, 2017

Things have been slow here at the ranch. We are mostly
getting back into routines after the Delaware trip. Lise is doing her work and
I am working through the list of things that have been put off for a couple
years.

In the not pleasant category, within a 24-hour time span we
found out that two friends both have lung cancer. Both are in our age bracket
and neither are smokers. Both had a cancer that started elsewhere and
metastasized to their lungs. I have some aches and pains but this is different
by a couple orders of magnitude.

So this has redefined our social life a bit. I’ve picked up
the walking of three golden retrievers. Which is one way to get in your cardio
workout. For a number of years most of my cardio workouts have been on machines
in the gym. These dogs have changed that. One of them is quite happy running at
a full tilt boogie for the mile loop around our neighborhood. Stopping only to
make a quick fecal deposit in someone’s yard. So I’m running full bore for a
mile alongside this mongrel while carrying a plastic bag of dog dookie. Not
quite what I had in mind for retirement but, you do what ya gotta do.

We have gotten a few new bird species since the Delaware trip,
plus added some species to our Michigan list for the year. I have 67 total species
for the year and Lise has 61. We both have 19 species here in Michigan. No
dragonfly species yet.

We are not crazy bird listers. There are some in the birding
community that are kind of nuts about listing. Following is a request from a
statewide listserve for personal lists in the following categories. I’m pretty
sure there are some birders that do in fact maintain lists in these categories. For
reference, a tick means you have seen the species in the particular local. A Big “defined time span” is where you are trying to see as many species as possible, within the
defined time span, within some geographic boundary. BIGBY is a green big year
where you don’t use fossil fuels for your Big “time span“

list.

County Life Lists (PLEASE SEND COUNTIES IN ALPHABETIC ORDER!!)

Average Birds Per County

County Life Lists (PLEASE SEND COUNTIES IN ALPHABETIC ORDER!!)
Average Birds Per County
Total County Ticks
Annual County Ticks
Counties with 300 Species
Counties with 250 Species
Counties with 200 Species
Counties with 150 Species
Counties with 100 Species
Site Life Lists:
 Townships
 Municipalities
 Other Sites
Site Big Year
County Big Year
County Big Day by Month
Regional Lists
 Upper Peninsula Life
 Upper Peninsula Total Ticks
 Keweenaw Peninsula Life
 Lower Peninsula Life
 Northern Lower Total Ticks
 Southern Lower Total Ticks
 Metro Detroit Life
State Lists
 State Life List
 Self Found State List
 State List by Month
 State Big Year
 State Big Month
 State Big Day by Month
Green Lists
 Green State Life List
 State BIGBY
 County BIGBY
 Green County Life List
 County BIGBY on Foot
 County Green Big Day
 Total Green County Ticks