turndoozie

Saturday, February 16

Greetings from Marquette Michigan. Molly has four days off from school and this is the weekend of the U.P. 200 dogsled race. Jean and Joanna were nice enough to give up their house for us so we decided to hit the road. As soon as Molly got out of school yesterday we headed north.

The drive up here could have been better. We hit the obligatory blizzard between Grayling and Gaylord. Think Shackleton. Things are real different when you cross the 45 parallel. Once we crossed the bridge things cleared a bit and we made pretty good time. Too good, according to the nice police officer that only gave me a warning.

Today we just putzed around town, basically just kicking back and relaxing a bit. We grabbed some pasties, the UP’s version of soul food. Pasties are a pastry shell with meat and some vegies inside. When the vendor says “with or without” you are supposed to know he is referring to rutabagas. If you don’t know, you’re a tourist. I believe Pasties originated with Welsh miners. They would bring them to work for lunch and could heat them up on a shovel. They’re part of the culture up here.

So Ole went out to the camp three holer and Enid was there fishing around in it with a stick. Ole asked what he could possibly be doing and Enid replied, “I was sitting here doing my business when my coat slipped down the other hole.” Ole said, “You don’t want that nasty old coat after it’s been down there.” Enid replied, “Oh, I don’t care about that old coat but there’s a pastie in the pocket.”

There are pastie shops all over the UP. Everyone thinks they make the best pasties. We have our favorite. I’m doing something controversial here and saying that Jean Kay’s pasties are the best in the U.P. Maybe in the world. This is like publicly saying which superhero is the best. Or Weavers scrapple is better than Heagy’s. Fighting words in some places. I expect hate mail and death threats over this but some things need to be said.

A pastie.

We spent a year up here and have fallen for the place. This is a tough place. Not Sonoran desert tough but tough in a different way. Think Shackleton. If it’s not winter, they’re getting ready for winter.* Hundreds of people turn out in 13 degree weather to watch the start of a dogsled race. The race is 200 miles long. Teams start Friday night and the winner comes in sometime Sunday morning. Nobody cares about the mushers but there are mandatory rest stops for the dogs. I question if the stops are needed. These dogs want to run. They may not take Westminster but these are the dogs I want on my fighting side.

*Another event that demonstrates the UP culture was the outdoor art show at Presque Isle park. Sculptures were scattered around the island that juts out into Lake Superior. The only way to view the works was on X-Country skis or snow shoes. Air temps were below zero. Thousands were in attendance. –Lise

Birding by the breakwall.

Notice the spikes to keep the birders out.

Tough dogs and tough people. It was 13 degrees Fahrenheit at start time.

Not the fashions you will see in Okemos.

Tomorrow, the Peshekee Grade and the search for gray jays.

Sunday, February 10

Been a busy, but productive week. Now that it doesn’t get dark until 6:00, we have some time for after work birding. Tuesday Lise and I went to Rose Lake and cruised some local roads, looking for field birds and hopefully some Bohemian waxwings. We struck out on that group but we did end up with great views of a sharp-shinned hawk. For you non-birders, I am not making these names up.

Yesterday we went back to Rose Lake hoping for the Bohemian waxwings. No luck on them but we did get bluebirds and Lise got great looks at a Northern harrier flying over. We also saw chickadees gnawing down on another carcass. I don’t know if that is normal behavior for chickadees or only something peculiar to Rose Lake chickadees. This strikes me as a bit Hitchcockian. I’m thinking of throwing a dead cat out by our feeders to see if our neighborhood chickadees are carnivores too. I wonder if they’ll eat scrapple.

After Rose Lake we cruised around the fields around MSU and found a flock of horned larks, snow buntings, and Lapland longspurs.

Mixed flock playing in traffic.

Lapland longspur. Documentary photo shot out the car window. Next year I focus on pictures, not numbers.

Today I had high hopes for getting something productive done but things didn’t quite work out that way. First I went to Fenner Nature Center to try for pictures of a Townsend’s solitaire that has been hanging out there. The bird was a no-show while I was there. Not a totally unproductive time though. I got house finches and a Cooper’s hawk while waiting for the varmint to show up. And the male cardinals are starting to get frisky. I saw six of them around a female trying to court her. Pretty optimistic considering there is still snow on the ground.

Hey baby, hey baby.

Here I am girls.

I went home and happened to check the listserves. Someone reported Bohemian waxwings at the Pickney Rec Area (about 45 minutes away) and a Ross’s goose another half hour away. I should say, another half hour if you actually know where you are going. Lise and Molly were going shoe shopping so I decided to blow off my workout and some digital darkroom to up the species count. Swim a mile or go birding? Tough choice but I guess we all know the answer to that one.

Went to the waxwing location and found them after about five minutes. I spotted the flock up in a tree and trotted back to the car for the scope. It was then I realized that I forgot to put the scope in the car. Saying “oh darn” under my breath I went back to ID them with binoculars. It took a good 15 – 20 minutes to finally distinguish that there were Bohemian waxwings mixed in the usual cedar waxwings.

Mixed waxwing flock.

Heading out to chase the Ross’s goose I had one of those Buddhist “everything happens for a purpose” moments. About a quarter mile away I saw a hawk fly in. As I got close enough for a good look I saw it was a red-shouldered hawk, not the red-tailed hawk I initially thought. If I had the scope with me I would have IDed the Bohemians in about a minute and been out of there, never seeing the red-shouldered. This is a good one to get. They nest here in Michigan but it isn’t a given that you will see one.

Then it was down to Little Lake to find the Ross’s goose. Little Lake is very little and surrounded office buildings and condos. I waited about an hour behind some office complex but the goose never showed up. I did get American coot, American black duck and lesser scaup while waiting for the Ross’s goose.

So the Michigan counts now stand at 75 for me and 70 for Lise. She has 71 species but that includes a trip to Indiana. We both have species that the other doesn’t have, but these are fairly common ones. So our counts should start equalizing over time. The first good thaw around here she will get all the duck species I have. Eventually I’ll get the neighborhood Carolina wren that she has.

Monday, February 4

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Not too much birding has been done since the last post. The weather here has been kind of nasty. Cold with a lot of ice or snow showers. Just enough to make everything sloppy. Add that to it getting dark not long after work it is hard to get in any quality birding time in the evenings.

This past weekend wasn’t very conducive to getting out either. Saturday we hosted Lise’s annual Groundhog’s Day party. Gala event of the year. And apparently the varmint didn’t see his shadow so this nasty winter stuff will be over shortly.

Sunday, Molly and Lise went down to Pokagon so Molly could get in some National Honor Society volunteer hours. Not something I ever had to worry about in high school. I got out a little chasing Bohemian waxwings that have been reported in large numbers locally. Everywhere locally except where I was looking for them.

I did see something that seemed unusual. Some chickadees were feeding on something on the ground. I got a couple pictures from the car before I looked close. When I put my binos on them I realized what I thought was a tuft of grass was really fur. I think these guys were chowing down on a deer carcass. I don’t want to slip and pass out when filling our feeders. They may start gnawing on me.

Singing away.

Munching away.

Then we went to a Super Bowl party Sunday evening. Not like I was really interested in it. I haven’t followed football since the 1980s. Two major events drove me away. Terry Bradshaw retired from the Steelers and Barry Manilow sang the national anthem at the Super Bowl. That dark event happened somewhere around 1983. I saw no reason to watch that Super Bowl or any other since.

We went to the party because we like the person hosting it and the people she invited. Most of which were at the Groundhog’s Day party too. I did watch some of the game, not really interested in who won. Baltimore isn’t my favorite city but I guess it deserved a Super Bowl win, given how their previous team hightailed it to Indianapolis in the middle of the night. Literally loaded the trucks and took off one night before anyone knew it. My grandfather is still spinning in his grave over that one. If we strapped magnets to his body we could produce electricity. Maybe this will settle him down.

I don’t know where the Baltimore team came from but I’m guessing an early parole program. They looked like carjackers in football jerseys. I swear that every time they tackled a 49er it looked like they were going for his wallet.

I did watch the Beyonce halftime show. Wow. I don’t care if she did lip sync it. She could have sounded like Elmer Fudd and I wouldn’t have cared.

Since I didn’t get any good birding pictures I thought I would throw in a couple of the multifaceted Fido as a pool hustler.

Checking out the competition.

Lining up her own shot.

Monday, January 28

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We did an overnight trip with Barb up above the 45 parallel to the Sault Ste. Marie area. Added 12 new species to Michigan list for the year. I’m at 64 species and Lise is at 65.

A couple we could have gotten down here but some were really good birds to get. One was Northern hawk owl. This is a small, quite handsome, occasional winter visitor from parts further north. As posted, the owl was located at Curleze Corner Hair Salon.

Northern hawk owl. One classy looking owl.

One not too classy looking hair salon. I’m guessing the garage doors are so you can get your beehive hairdo out the door. Or a mullet gone bad. Maybe they do oil changes while your hair is drying.

Walk-ins welcome, but anyone walking there has a fair piece to walk.

In the same area we had not one, but two, snowy owls. Again, occasional winter visitors from up north. Last year there was a major irruption and they were appearing fairly far south. Not so much this year. They are really striking birds, especially when you see them fly against a dark cloudy background.

Another classy owl. They can turn their head almost 180 degrees around. They have feathers on their feet to stay warm

Another lifer for both Lise and me was sharp-tailed grouse. We searched for them in the same area last year with no luck. I think our search engines weren’t tuned quite right. We needed to be looking for blobs up in the trees, not birds on the ground. Once we figured it out we found about seven of them. Plump little birds, just hanging out in the trees.

We also got a ruffed grouse, one of my nemesis birds last year. Getting one this early in the year is a good sign. This one was up in a tree eating catkins. I’ve never seen a grouse up in a tree. Usually they’re well camouflaged on the ground, exploding out right in front of you when you almost step on them, causing a minor heart attack.

Ruffed grouse eating catkins.

Other new ones for the Michigan list include pileated woodpecker, common raven, Northern shrike, rough-legged hawk, glaucous gull, hooded merganser, hoary redpoll, and pine grosbeak. This was only the second time I’ve seen pine grosbeaks and these cooperated for pictures.

Rough-legged hawk. Biggish lens handheld so not too great a picture.

Northern shrike. Small bird, a bit far away, so another so-so picture.

Cooperative pine grosbeaks.

We did miss a couple we expected to get like evening grosbeaks, white-winged and red crossbills, pine siskins, and the nemesis gray jay. We tried really hard for a gray jay. Barb even tried the old “rattle a chip bag to bring them in trick” and it didn’t work. Second time they have shut us down. We even used Lay’s potato chips and they didn’t respond. So we ended up eating the potato chips. While we were rattling chip bags for gray jays Lise took pictures of an incredibly rare snow snake.

Barb with the chip bag and no gray jays. Yes, it was cold.

Lise’s snow snake.

We got to see some weirdness while up there. We went to the Dafter dump looking for gulls. I got the bright idea to walk around the dump on some snow covered railroad tracks for a better view. Bad idea. We got around the dump but the view wasn’t good and the air was worse. There was a vent pipe with so much methane gas coming out of it the air was distorted. The smell was bad enough to gag a maggot. I’m thinking it will be pretty interesting if one of the truck drivers flicks his Bic to light up a butt.

Methane vent. Breath deep, the gathering gloom…….

Then we found a half a trailer home. I’m guessing everything was literally split in half after the divorce. This thing reminded me of the football player Hacksaw Reynolds. In the late 60s his college team lost a big game. He was so mad he sawed a car in half with a hacksaw.

“For the divorce settlement we split everything down the middle, fair and square.”

We finished up Saturday evening with dinner at Antlers. Still a lot of dead things hanging on the wall. They have even branched out to tropical fish. I can’t believe that Antlers doesn’t make it onto chowhound.com.

The usual dead things on the wall.

The tropical fish selection.

All-in-all a good trip. Fun with friends, new species for the year, a couple lifers, and some serious weirdness. The only down side was the drive home. Making a winter trip in Michigan is always a gamble. The weather is about as stable as the Greek economy. We had to do about four hours in a nasty winter storm but we got back safe and sound. All is well.

Sunday, Jan 27

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Just got back from a birding trip to the Upper Peninsula. Not a whole lot of species but some really, really good ones. Came back through a nasty winter storm, which apparently is the norm for a winter trip to the U.P. Trip details will follow tomorrow. Now it’s time to kick back with a hot buttered rum and be glad I’m not still driving. Made with Mount Gay rum, the best thing to come out of Barbados.

Birds of prey know they’re cool.

Sunday, January 20

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We bagged our planned Upper Peninsula trip because of the weather. They were supposed to get snow and high winds. The snow might have made the birding interesting but the wind would have kept everything down. It wasn’t worth driving all the way up there without a fair chance of seeing some good things. Next week I guess. I just hope the Northern hawk owl keeps hanging out at the Curleze Corner Hair Salon.

Since we didn’t bird the Upper Peninsula we tried our luck with a road trip in the Downer Peninsula. We started with a visit to Lake St. Clair Metro Park, then headed up to Port Huron, and finished trying for short-eared owls near Ann Arbor.

At Lake St. Clair we didn’t see the hoped for merlin that hangs out around the parking lot and we “just missed” the roosting great horned owl. We did get a couple passerines and some waterfowl, including some nice side by side looks at redheads and canvasbacks. At a nearby DNR boat launch site Lise got a flyover trumpeter swan which I missed.

Then it was up to Port Huron. We were hoping for a Western grebe reported there. Missed the grebe but we did get Iceland gull and white-winged scoter, both nice birds to add to the list. We also got a black-backed gull which Lise needed.

We then made a mad, but I assure you, safe, dash down to Ann Arbor for the short-eared owls. There was just barely enough light to see by when we got there. We scanned a couple times but no owls. It may have been too windy by the time we got there. The lack of cars was probably telling. There are usually a number of people there for the owl show, especially on a Saturday night. Could be the birds just aren’t showing up at the same spot they did last year. Anyway, we finished a long birding day having dinner in Ann Arbor with our friend Phyllis and her siblings at Casey’s Tavern. A good birding day finished with good company, good sandwiches, and good beer. Don’t get much gooder than that.

Today Lise and I went out a bit locally. The highlight was finding a flock of ~50 redpolls, down by some power substation where we probably weren’t supposed to be. The gate was open so that was kind of like an invitation to go in.

Flying redpolls. OK, so I’m not going to make a living as a bird photographer. The damn things would not sit still.

I went home to report the redpolls and someone on the listserve had reported a tundra swan at a local lake. This is a rarity for an inland lake so we popped out and got the swans too.

Tundra swans. Mom, Dad, and a couple younguns. First time reported locally.

Tundra swans mooning me. I get no respect.

So right now I’m at 52 species and Lise is at 53. Twenty percent of the goal in the first couple weeks. Still going to need a couple Upper Peninsula trips though. Gee, what a bummer. Having to make a couple trips to the Upper Peninsula. Throw me in that briar patch.

Thursday, January 17

We got the Townsend’s solitaire at Fenner yesterday morning before work. We were there at first light and it was a cool 15 degrees when we went wandering around the park. We knew the general area but at a fork in the trail we went left. Not for any particular political reasons, I just thought that’s where the bird was. After wandering around a bit we were headed back when someone on the right fork waved us over to the solitaire. Great views but it moved too fast to get good pictures.

Townsend’s solitaire picture. OK, so the bird wasn’t cooperating but I thought it was an interesting picture anyway. Kind of a Monet does birding thing. It’s the essence of a Townsend’s solitaire.

This bird is way out of its range, which is way out west. There has been one seen a couple hours away by Lake Michigan at Warren Dunes State Park. We tried for it as part of the 2012 Biggish year but never found it. So this lost little guy popping up in Lansing saved us some time and gas. Bad for him but good for us. He may be missing his buddies but he added a good one for this year’s count.

A few things have been popping up. We got a sapsucker when we saw the solitaire. Lise had a kestrel today and I saw a great blue heron on the way back from a business trip to Ann Arbor. If the weather holds we are going to try an eastern U.P. trip this weekend. Some good species have been reported, including a northern hawk owl at the Curleze Corner Hair Salon in Rudyard. This I have got to see. I’m thinking the big beehive hairdos like in the Far Side cartoons.

Ever the optimist, I expect a minor blizzard. This past weekend a local birder posted on his trip up there. Crossing the Mackinaw Bridge the wind was so bad it flipped a trailer with snowmobiles over in front of him. It took 20 minutes to get the trailer righted and they needed a semi to act as a windbreak as they drove off the bridge. This should be fun.

Since birding is slow here at the moment I thought I would add some commentary about the many talents of Fido the wonder lizard. Starting with Fido, the master computer technician. I’m surprised this thing puts up with us. I think she’s patiently waiting for us to die so she can gnaw on our carcasses.

Fido takes on repair of a vintage HP desktop.

This thing is hopeless. Have you tried a Mac? Is there any food around here?

Tuesday, January 15

Not too much going on birding wise. Actually better stated, Lise and I haven’t been getting much in. Last Saturday I went with Barb down to the drainage pond behind the Visteon complex. This was the headquarters of an auto component manufacturer. Nearby there is a large landfill complex that draws gulls by the thousands. There was a slaty-backed gull reported the day before we went down. There were several hundred gulls when we got to the pond, but no slaty-backed. We did get a lesser black-backed gull which was quite nice. Haven’t heard any reports of slaty-backed since then either.

Visteon pond.

Visteon gulls.

Visteon gull hunters. We were not alone.

Lise was down in Indiana for a couple days. On her way back she hit the ever popular Kinderhook waste water treatment plant and got a Northern shoveler. So our total birding the past week has consisted of an industrial drainage pond and a waste water treatment plant. (I also had a Carolina Wren – Lise)

Not that things aren’t happening around here. There are reports of Bohemian waxwing and common redpoll flocks in the area. And a report late today of a Townsend’s solitaire at a local park. We have just been a little too tied up lately. I think tomorrow it is time to go out and play a bit. A Townsend’s solitaire would be a great bird to get locally.

We’ve been busy and the weather has been too nasty to do much outdoor photography so I have to figure out other ways to have some fun. In a tip of the hat to Gary Larsen’s “The Many Moods of The Irish Setter” I give you the many moods of Fido, the bearded dragon.

Happy

Joyful

Effervescent

Thoughtful

Pensive

Melancholy

Depressed

Suicidal

Food?

Back to sleep.

Monday, January 7

Lise had a meeting over in Port Huron so I tagged along. I got 10 species and Lise got 9. She missed common merganser while in her meeting but she should be able to pick one up fairly easily. Her meeting was right on the St. Clair River and we also birded Lake Huron a bit. We got bald eagle, long-tailed duck, red-breasted merganser, common merganser, golden eye, bufflehead, mallard, ring-billed gull, herring gull, and greater scaup.

Most of these fall into the “you will see them if you go to the right habitat” category. Long-tailed duck was a good one since they are only around in the winter and you need to be on the coast to see them. Rarely would they be inland. Bald eagles are an interesting case. When I first started birding they were still listed as an endangered species. It was a big deal to see one in Indiana, or most places in the lower 48. I remember volunteering on the hacking program to reintroduce them to Indiana. Now, it is pretty hard to not see one. I fully expect to see one somewhere in Michigan, without trying to find them. I kind of like them in that status.

Port Huron is situated at the very southern point of Lake Huron. The lake drains through the St Clair River into Lake St. Clair and eventually continues the passage through Lakes Erie and Ontario and finally out to the Atlantic Ocean through the St. Lawrence Seaway. You can sit by the St. Clair River and these big freighters come steaming down river. The river isn’t all that wide so there isn’t much room for navigational error.

Lise looking over Lake Huron.

Lise again.

The town looks like it has seen better days but it’s still kind of interesting. Some really nice old buildings and homes. Definite nautical overtones, with monuments to sunken ships and lost sailors. The park where Lake Huron enters the St. Clair River had a Border Patrol car in the parking lot. Guess they were waiting for any Canadians that may try to swim across to the good ol’ U.S. of A. Don’t know why they would unless they wanted the privilege of going broke paying for their health care instead of getting that socialized medicine. Or they might be smuggling in that un-American Canadian bacon. It’s actually ham you know, not real bacon. If they can’t do bacon right, God knows what they would do to scrapple.

It was so cold that someone put a flannel robe and ear muffs on a monument.

We have 31 species for the year so far. Over 10% of the goal in the very first week of the year. Now is when overconfidence sets in. When I was a defense contractor there was an adage about designing aircraft. 90% of the effort and cost comes from getting the last 10% of aircraft performance. That was pretty much my experience last year. That last 10% took a lot more effort than the first 10%.

Sunday, January 6

This week has been the back to work grind. Hard to come back to Cubicle World after a week or so bopping around a different ecological system in 70 degree temperatures. But, as the seven dwarves sang, “I owe, I owe, it’s off to work I go.” Back to Dilbertville for me.

Friday evening Lise and I went down Ann Arbor way to try for short-eared owls. There is an area east of Ann Arbor where they are seen on a regular basis. Right at dusk they come out and fly around the open fields. Not so this past Friday. It was cold and there was a pretty stiff west wind that likely kept them down. Lise decided to make this year her “birds you can see from inside a warm car” year.

We busted on the owls but we should be able to get them another day. They are pretty regular at that site. Maybe a better find was the five pheasants we saw in a nearby field. These are not a rare species but you need to be in the right place at the right time to see them. This was one of Lise’s problem species last year. Seeing five cock pheasants playing in the snow was a treat, even if these are an introduced species. We also saw a large flock of snow buntings flying around. A problem species for me last year.

Pheasants through the bushes. Handheld, biggish lens, low light so a not so hot picture.

Those white things are a flock of fast moving snow bunting at almost dark. Go for the zen, not the details.

Afterwards we met our friend Phyllis for dinner at Casey’s Tavern in Ann Arbor. While we were fighting the cold winds, Phyl was fighting the Friday crowds, staunchly holding a table for us during Friday night dinner rush. It wasn’t pretty but she held the line.

Yesterday Lise and I did a Saturday morning walk in the snowy fields at Rose Lake. Bird wise it was just the usual suspects until Lise found a white-winged crossbill as we were heading out. Same place we had them last year too.

Fields at Rose Lake.

I finally had a little time to revisit the Michigan bird list. There are 434 species on the list, including 79 accidentals and 5 extirpated species. One of the extirpated species is the ivory-billed woodpecker with the annotation of “needs citation.” Not likely we will be seeing that one. The accidentals are just that, accidental. Like anhinga. Having just left 70 degree Florida, the only reason for an anhinga to be here in 20 degree Michigan would be one rather nasty accident. I don’t think the size of an anhinga brain lends itself to a lot of cognitive processing but they have to know they don’t belong here.

So removing the extirpated and accidental species we are left with 350 species. I went through the list and came up with ~210 species that one could reasonably expect to find if in the right habitat at the right time of year. Mostly just being there at the right time in the right season. Not too challenging, just using some gas and time. So I’m going to up my goal for the year to 250 species in Michigan. Barb, a much better birder than I am, got 265 in Michigan last year. Given that a lot of my traveling this year will be out of state college visits I can live with a 250 species goal. Now I need to convince the family of that. And figure out how many can be seen from the inside of a toasty warm car.