Tuesday, February 14

Greetings on Valentine’s Day. A day that somehow shifted from being a celebration honoring a martyred saint to becoming a Hallmark holiday. Anything to keep the economy going I guess.

No surprise here, but I haven’t been writing much lately. Sometimes it’s just hard to sit down and write. At least to write anything intelligent. Usually, one needs something to write about. But lately there hasn’t been too much in our day to day lives to write about. We’re just doing the usual drill. It’s not like I have nothing to do. I’m plenty busy with any number of projects going on. And they all take longer than I think they should take. Which should be no surprise to me after close to seven decades of this planet. I would preach it to my students that everything will take longer than you think it will so plan accordingly.

Given that I’m not gainfully employed, one would think I have plenty to time to ponder the larger things in life and share my thoughts with the larger world. Not so. I always have multiple woodworking projects going on. There are always household projects, like fixing the garage door opener that took it upon itself to violently fall apart. And, since I apparently have too much time on my hands, I decided to take up learning Irish Gaelic. Something really useful that should benefit my family and society as a whole. AT least it does keep me off the streets.

The last time I wrote we had just visited Philly during the Mummer’s Parade. During that trip we got in some play time in Philly and Delaware, before heading back to Indiana. Coastal Delaware is a great place to start your yearly bird species list. We got 50 or so species, without trying terribly hard.

Northern mocking bird grooming.

After a couple weeks back in Indiana we did a birding trip to Goose Pond. The trip was great for a couple reasons. For starters, just getting out is good. This time we met up with a couple friends from Bloomington that we haven’t been out with for a good twenty years. Then to top it off we find out that Goose Pond now has the largest wintering population of the endangered whooping cranes outside of Aransus, Texas. A breeding population has been established in Wisconsin and those birds now winter here in Indiana at Goose Pond.

Very distant whooping cranes at Goose Pond.

Goose Pond is an area that people have been trying to commercially farm since about the time of European settlement. And everyone that tried eventually failed. Despite best efforts to drain it, the area is just too wet for agriculture. About the time we left Indiana for Michigan, state and federal agencies finally stepped in and purchased the land to restore for wildlife. It was a stunning success. Being close to the Central Flyway, Indiana now gets birds that I cannot ever remember being in Indiana. White Pelicans, white-fronted geese, snow geese, and a host of others are regular visitors. Now, the whooping cranes. Goose Pond is truly an example of, “if you build it they will come”.

Thousands of snow geese congregating at Goose Pond.

And we recently did our annual eastern Upper Peninsula winter birding trip with our friend Joanna. As a bonus, on the return trip we stayed in our old stomping grounds of Okemos to visit with friends. Always a fun trip. The birding was OK but not great. The winter has been mild so possibly the more northern species didn’t feel the need to come south. And the species we did see were in reduced numbers. Last year we saw over twenty snowy owls. This year we had less than ten. Not complaining. Seeing just one snowy owl makes the trip worthwhile.