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.
Last Sunday, on his way to the Upper Peninsula, a coworker saw a swallow-tailed kite just north of Lansing. Being a seriously out of place Florida bird, the birding listserves were buzzing. Several other people spotted it again Sunday evening. Lise and I couldn’t get away until Monday after work. We sat in cold intermittent rain with a number of other chasers for about three hours with no luck. Met a lady doing a Michigan big year. She had 299 species just in Michigan, and really wanted that bird for number 300. Not to be had that night. Luckily the kite has hung around, being intermittently seen all week. We finally got out this afternoon and saw it after only about 10 minutes of waiting. A quite attractive bird, effortlessly gliding around, and a real treat to see in Michigan.
Looking for a swallow-tailed kite.
We also got an American golden plover this week. That brings our totals to 281 for me and 256 for Lise. That’s with trips to Delaware for both of us, Arizona for me, and California for Lise. Compared to the lady with 299 species just in Michigan. And she has a full time job. That’s hardcore. She probably hasn’t slept since last January.
Lise is back from the family get together out in California. From all I can tell she had a great time. In addition to scoring some family time she scored sixteen new birds for the year including; Western Grebe, Black-crowned Night-Heron, White-tailed Kite, Black Oystercatcher, Wilson’s Phalarope, Heermann’s Gull, Western Gull, Pigeon Guillemot, Band-tailed Pigeon, Costa’s Hummingbird, Black Phoebe, Steller’s Jay, Bushtit, Canada Warbler, Western Tanager, Lesser Goldfinch. The black-crowned night heron and the Canada warbler can be found here but not the others. Not a bad little trip, complete with a legal family owned distillery tour. That’s different. A legal still.
Mike’s distillery. (Sue McCoy photo)
The shorebird migration is in process so I hit Pte. Mouillee State Game Area the day I picked her up at the Detroit airport. Pte. Moo, as it is known, is a about a 4,000 acre coastal marsh area, on the shores of Lake Erie at the Huron River mouth.
Pte. Moo is hardly a pristine area. It’s mostly diked wetlands and you either walk or cycle miles along the dikes. There’s always some kind of disturbance going on. The DNR loves doing stuff, like moving dirt around, or dredging, or pumping water from one place to another. Usually all three at once. With some pretty major boy toys. A thunderstorm blew in while I was a couple miles out on the dikes. The only cover was under one of the humongous dump trucks. I could stand upright under the back of it, and keep my bicycle dry. This, my friend, is a big truck. Only real men need apply and it probably helps to be an NRA member. I believe it eats Priuses for fuel.
Shelter from the storm.
Always doing something.
The birds don’t seem to mind the ongoing attempts to manipulate nature. Pte. Moo is a major shorebird and waterfowl migratory stopover site and lots of interesting things pop in there. For the year I got a stilt sandpiper, white pelicans, whimbrel, and Wilson’s phalarope. And, nice views of a truck underside.
Today Lise and I tried a quick run to Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. The trip didn’t quite work as planned. First, I forgot to put the scope in the car. Then we hit a pretty steady rain. At least we did get Lincoln’s sparrow. After all is said and done our yearly totals now stand at 279 for me and 254 for Lise.
You can tell there has been a seasonal shift. I hit a couple local restored prairies the past few days, hoping for some grassland bird pictures. Not to be. The birds are no longer territorial, sitting up on twigs, calling their hearts out to defend a territory. There’s some noise from fledglings, begging mom and dad to feed them. Mostly though, the bird calls have been replaced with a constant insect drone. It’s kind of nice to get lost in it. Unlike the constant drone from the Republican presidential hopefuls. I will be really glad when they finish slaughtering each other and offer the survivor up for the final sacrifice.
So apparently today is World Lizard Day. Don’t know who proclaimed it, but it is. So in honor of World Lizard Day I scanned Fido. She wasn’t particularly pleased with the process so it isn’t the best image. I think we’re going to need a larger scanner for next year.
Things are pretty slow around here. Even the Indiana legislature isn’t doing anything stupid at the moment. Must be in recess. At least the Republicans are providing us Trump for amusement. What great job security for comedy writers and political cartoonists. It’s almost too easy. Maybe that’s why John Steward quit. Related to politics, I heard a great line yesterday; if conservatives think the Pope is too liberal wait until they meet Jesus.
Friday night and Saturday we spent most of the time at the East Lansing Folk Festival. One of the bigger name groups was the Tannehill Weavers. Two of the founders are still in the group after about 40 years. Great music and some very funny lines. Like, how does a Scotsman prevent seasickness? Lean way over the boat railing with a five pound note in his mouth. How does an Irishman prevent seasickness? Stand under a tree.
The Tannehill Weavers.
The Tannehill Weavers. Telling stories and jokes.
The Tannehill Weavers.
The Tannehill Weavers.
The Tannehill Weavers. Bagpipes are like bacon. They make everything better.
One of the events was a community sing, something I tend to avoid at all costs. My singing sounds like a cat being picked up with a pair of pliers. Then multiply that. Not much worse than karaoke except group karaoke. Wanting to see the next act in the tent we wandered up to the group sing. Then they started singing Amazing Grace. A Capella. Written by John Newton, an ex-slaver, there’s something about that song that just grabs the soul. Pretty much everyone within earshot, from teeny-boppers on up the age scale, joined in. Even I sang along, as softly as possible. It was kind of moving. The only thing that might have made it better was if the Weaver’s bagpiper provided accompaniment.
We heard a number of genre including Celtic, Creole, Cajun, Blues, and Caribbean. One of the Creole songs translated to something like; “All Parts of a Pig are Useful”. Which makes me think they know about scrapple.
The Cajun group.
The Cajun group.
The Cajun group.
The Cajun group.
The Cajun group.
Listening through the rain.
Lise in the crowd.
The Caribbean group. He’s from Trinidad.
The Caribbean group. The lady on the left is from Trinidad and the one on the right from Niger.
The Caribbean group. He’s from Detroit and his name is Mellow. Seen here singing a butt-kicking version of Smokey Robinson’s Motown hit, My Girl.
And just to show that there is some humor in East Lansing, this is the Monkey-Mobile.
Sometimes it’s hard to write. Nothing comes to mind. Where are the Muses to help me out when my mind is blank? So what to do until the Muses arrive?
Well there’s the day job. Not much fun but essential if we want to eat and put Molly through college. At least for the moment it isn’t a choice between the two. It’s an AND function, not an OR function in the logic world.
There’s the usual taking care of things around the house, like finally getting the dishwasher to stop leaking. Let me tell you, there are some mighty disgusting things living in the hidden areas of a dishwasher. We’re talking primordial soup kind of stuff.
Being the high heat of summer there’s the pleasure of just sitting on the patio with a gin and tonic. With a slice of lime in it we prevent both malaria and scurvy. I like the hot weather. It’s bunches nicer than -20 degrees. On a real special day we set up the hose for Fido to play in. Who would have thought a desert lizard enjoys swimming through puddles. The neighbors do their grandchild, we do the lizard. Toss-up over which is cuter.
Enjoying the water.
There’s watching the neighborhood wildlife, like the skunk family that visits each night. Or, the race of enormous groundhogs we seem to have produced. Fat Boy and his progeny have done well this year. I’m seeing an inverse relationship between two variables; garden productivity and groundhog size. One goes down and the other one goes up. Exponentially.
There’s reading, like Susan Cain’s “Quiet”. Where she blows away the myth of great big brainstorming sessions and group projects having any positive relationship to productivity. Just about every major scientific theory or technological achievement has come about from an individual working by themselves, not from GroupThink.
There’s doing Hunter’s senior pictures. He’s a lot easier to work with than Molly and Lindsay.
Hunter, pre-touchup.
There’s going to Espresso Royale in the evenings, having a coffee and watching people. Or getting the following text from Molly. “Did you hear about the chameleon that couldn’t change color? He had a reptile dysfunction.”
There’s entertaining Molly’s boyfriend Mitchell, A.K.A., HIM. He isn’t the rumored drug dealer word on the street would have you believing. Which is kind of a shame since I was hoping he could help me with something for my lower back.
There’s going to Binder Park Zoo. Which we used to do annually with Molly, but she couldn’t do because she’s at King’s Island with HIM.
Cute prairie dogs.
Cute red panda.
Not so cute cheetah.
There’s getting out for some odonating. Nothing major, just quick jaunts to a local park.
Arrow clubtail.
Calico pennant.
Immature meadowhawk.
Teneral (newly hatched) meadowhawk.
Violet dancer male.
Violet dancer female.
Mating violet dancers.
White-faced meadowhawk.
White-faced meadowhawk.
And finally, there’s updating to Windows 10. Says something about your life when updating a computer operating system is fun to do. But at least I’m helping cleanse the world of the Windows 8 scourge. I’m sure Windows 8 came out of a group project brainstorming session. Probably from some North Korean think tank. It says something when Microsoft, the Great Satan of the computer world, gives a free update from Windows 8. Because programmers like to use shortcuts, Microsoft had to jump the number 9 in their numbering system. Windows 9 could get confused with Windows 95 or Windows 98 e.g., sys==9*. So we have Windows 10 instead of Windows 9. The name isn’t that important to me, and it has got to be better than Windows 8. God knows it can’t be worse. Personally I would have named it something like Die8Die.
Anyway, if the Muses pay me a visit I’ll try to write something creative. On a computer that now runs WIndows 10.
Been awhile since I’ve had time to write. Last week I was in the Upper Peninsula, installing bat monitors on the Hiawatha National Forest. With the help of Forest Service technicians we installed ten of them. We were all over the forest and I put over a thousand miles on the van. Plus had to fight some major mosquitoes. Satan’s spawn were out in full force. I’m still a couple pints low on blood.
Prior to now we have been putting the detector microphones close to the ground. At the workshop I attended in May they stressed the need to get the microphones up in the air. So I came up with a rig built out of PVC that can get the mics 15’ up in the air. They ain’t pretty but they work and they only cost about $30 each. Way better than the several hundred dollars the specially designed poles cost.
PVC bat monitor.
While I was up there Joanna let me stay at the Sand River cabin. Always a pleasure, even if I was there for work and didn’t get the time on the river I wanted. Sand River is a low gradient, slow moving river. It’s dark too, probably a function of tannins from the pines. When the wind isn’t stirring it, the surface gets perfectly smooth and the dark waters reflect like a mirror. Just lovely, especially when the low angle sun puts a warm glow on everything. Drifting on the river in a late sun is right up there with a good Irish whiskey. It just doesn’t get much better than that.
It’s tough to take pictures on the river. You’re moving in a boat, and you make ripples that disturb the surface. But here’s a few quick tries.
Sand River reflections.
Didn’t get in any birding but I did chase some dragonflies. Both on the river and at a nearby bog.
Twelve-spotted skimmer.
Amber-wing spreadwing.
Familiar bluets getting frisky.
Four-spotted skimmer.
Unknown spreadwing.
Frosted whitefaces getting frisky.
Grass-pink, an orchid in the bog.
The UP trip was fun but, the rest of the world doesn’t stand still. So I’ve been occupied catching up on work or household things. Last weekend a magnificent frigatebird showed up on Lake Michigan, down close to the Indiana border. Two and a half hour drive from here. This is a Gulf Coast bird that decided it needed a northern vacation. Not a bird anyone expects to ever see in Michigan. Birders were flocking to see this thing but I just couldn’t get away. Today Lise had a business trip down there so I went with to help her out. While we were down there we tried for the frigatebird but no luck. We did get two new species for the year, sora and bank swallows. That brings me to 274 for the year and Lise to 236.
We have been some wandering souls. After our UP trip we spent a week or so in Okemos, land of the living dead. Then for the holiday weekend, Lise and I went to down to West Lafayette. Mostly hung around with Sue and relaxed. We spent some time at Prophetstown State Park where we finally got a dicsissel. That brings my yearly count to 272 and Lise’s to 234. We’ve reached the summer slowdown for birding. Until things start moving again we will not get significant number of species unless we travel somewhere new.
Prophetstown State Park is nice if you’re into prairie and prairie species. A few years ago it was cornfields, the typical Northern Indiana landscape. The Indiana DNR has done a pretty good job of making it a little more exciting, recreating prairie and savanna conditions. The flowers were in bloom but it’s still early in the season. Later the tall grasses will kick in, some growing way over five feet tall. You walk through a green tunnel listening to the birds you can’t see. Not for the claustrophobic.
Prophetstown prairie plants.
Bergamont.
Compass plant and prairie.
I got in a little odonating time at the park. Mostly wading in a small stream or struggling through a wetland in my waders, with a camera and flash on a tripod. Rough going but fun. Beats watching TV anytime. Each step you have to be thinking about where you are. A misstep and you’re down, desperately trying to keep and expensive camera and lens out of the water. Drowning is OK, just keep the camera safe.
Eastern forktail.
Northern bluet. Immature so I believe that is what it is.
Great blue skimmer. Another immature but I believe that’s correct.
Violet dancer.
And we did the West Lafayette fireworks show. Explosions are always kind of fun. They turn things into little pieces of things that move really fast. What’s not to like. Throw in some noise and bright colors and you got a winning combination.
West Lafayette fireworks. Explosions can be fun.
We got back Sunday, in time for me to pack for another UP trip. I had to come back up here to put in some bat monitors on the Hiawatha National Forest. So I’m taking a couple days and staying at Joanna’s cabin. I’m hoping to spend enough time here to establish squatter’s rights.
When I got to the cabin it was 56 degrees and raining. About an hour from here, at Seney National Wildlife Refuge, it was 68 degrees. So I’m looking over Sand River, watching the mist rise from the river as the sun is going down. I’ll take cold and rainy at the cabin over Lansing anytime.
June 21, the summer solstice. It’s all downhill from here. Headed towards the cold side of another trip around the sun.
As befitting the solstice it’s a warm muggy day. I’m celebrating with a gin and tonic on the deck. While Lise is mowing the lawn. I’d get around to it, we just have different standards in regards to grass length. She’s more in the camp of the Lawn Nazis on the township board that recently shortened the allowable length of your lawn. Our marginally paved roads are reverting to gravel, we can’t keep the schools funded, but at least we’ll all have uniform sized grass.
Anyway, we’re back from our little UP trip. Things didn’t go quite as expected but the UP is always an interesting place. The weather could have been better. For starters, last week was still pretty much springtime in the UP. It was very cool and there was a threat of frost on Thursday night.
Heading to the UP in the rain.
I thought it was some kind of UP specialty pie. Took me a bit to figure out it says, Home Made Soup and Pie.
We still had ample outdoor recreation opportunities. We did some hiking and birding. I’m now at 273 bird species for the year and Lise is at 233 species. Got to spend time on Sand River, in boats and waders. Can’t get much better than that. Walked around a sphagnum bog that had pitcher plants and sundew. Always interesting to see meat eating plants. Odonating was slow but I got a few pictures in. It’s always good to spend time with friends and we had ample time with Joanna.
Sand River, a nice place to be.
Sunset along Lake Superior.
Sun dew, a meat eating plant.
Pitcher plant, a meat eating plant.
Bluet damselfly in the bog. Haven’t keyed out yet but probably familiar bluet.
Four-spotted skimmer along Sand River.
One of the things we did with Joanna was to eat at a new Marquette establishment called The Marq. This was a new experience for me. They work on a philosophy called farm to table. They use Michigan products as much as possible and even make their own syrups for mixed drinks. The menu is very simple and changes every day depending on ingredient availability. The menu is only posted about an hour before they open. When we were there they had one steak dish (beef from a local farm), one fish dish (lake trout from Thill’s, third generation Lake Superior fishermen), a couple pasta dishes using local greens and vegetables, some interesting salads, and three kick-butt desserts. No scrapple though. I had the steak dish and the cayenne-chocolate dessert, both of which were god-awful good. And coffee from Dead River Coffee, which is roasted right next door. I love eating, I love good food, but I’m not a total foodie. I have real problems with people spending major money for some ephemeral taste sensation while others go hungry. That just ain’t right. But this was OK. The food was great, you’re supporting local agriculture, and it was priced at what typical restaurant fare would be. Four stars by Ed. I’d give them five if they served scrapple.
Another reason our vacation didn’t quite go as expected is because I threw in some work time. In a few weeks I’m doing some bat monitoring on the Hiawatha National Forest. I took advantage of our presence in the UP to check out potential sites with the National Forest biologists. It wasn’t total work. I got to see some interesting places and Lise got a ruffed grouse at one of the sites (I didn’t). Since we left the cabin and Sand River early we played our way home. We hit Tahquamenon Falls State Park and Wilderness State park. Places we usually blow by going to or from the cabin.
The Pictured Rocks and Tahquamenon Falls area is the setting for Longfellow’s Song of Hiawatha. Hiawatha built his canoe “by the rushing Tahquamenaw,” a variation of Tahquamenon. The falls are impressive, once you get past the obnoxious tourists that shouldn’t be allowed there. There is an upper and lower falls separated by about four miles. The upper falls has a 48 foot drop. In the late spring upwards of 50,000 gallons a second goes over the falls. That’s a lot of water. It’s kind of a sensory sensation. You can hear the falls from a distance away. As you get closer you feel it before you can see it. It’s a sensation in your chest like the bass at a good head-banger rock concert. The lower falls spread the water over a number of falls going around an island so it doesn’t have the same sensory impact. More subtle, but still quite impressive.
Upper falls, unfortunately in the shadow.
Some of the lower falls.
Wilderness State Park is quite different than Tahquamenon Falls. Tahquamenon has paved trails so obese tourists can waddle up to the falls. Wilderness is this huge area with a road that dead ends at a trail. To get anywhere you have to walk through a wide expanse that is best described as krummholz. It’s arctic like, mostly stunted trees, undergrowth, and wetlands. And it weeds out all the tourists that are large enough to warp space-time. There is also a nice dune and swale system along the Lake Michigan coastline that has lots of dragonflies. I plan to spend more time in Wilderness.
Krummholz area. Lake Michigan is about a mile from there.
Dune and swale along Lake Michigan.
Bluet damselfly in Wilderness. Haven’t keyed out yet but probably familiar bluet.
Ed's and Lise's Biggish Years 