Author: turndoozie

Been a busy birding weekend.  Finally got a snow bunting Friday. Lise has a project on the waterfront in Port Huron.  She wanted to go view the site and dragged me along. Cold, windy, rainy and such a lovely view. Not recommended as a first date place.  This was almost as good as our trip to the Detroit waterfront, just a little colder.  And fewer burnt out buildings. But, we did see snow buntings. And they had a nice little coffee chop.

That’s Canada across the river. I don’t see no moose or hockey players.

This is going to become a park.

Draw bridge on the main street in Port Huron.

Saturday we drove for an hour with Barb down to the Portage Lake Yacht Club to get a Pacific loon. Personally I was expecting Thurstan Howe III and Lovey at the yacht club but they didn’t show. Actually the yacht club people were very accommodating people and let a host of birders use their deck as a viewing platform.

This should have been an easy hit but the lake was completely fogged in. No horizon line, no differentiation of water or fog, just gray. No ability to focus. You stare through the scope at gray and then something pops through the mist into your field of view for a few seconds. Hopefully you can focus fast enough to catch a flash of white on the throat. We did get the loon which was a lifer for Barb. Lise got a Bonaparte’s gull for the year too.

View from the deck of the Portage Yacht Club.

There is a lake, and a Pacific loon, out there.

Sunday we did a road trip with Barb and Ellen over to Berrien and Allegan Counties chasing a Townsend’s solitaire and cackling, Ross’s, and white-fronted  geese. We didn’t do too good. First we chased Townsend’s solitaire at Love Creek Nature Center and Warren Dunes State Park. Busted both places. Walking the dunes was pretty cool though. This felt like Lawrence of Arabia kind of stuff. Living in Lansing it’s easy to forget that Michigan has the largest collection of freshwater dunes in the world.

Barb, Ellen, and Lise crossing the dunes.

Still crossing the dunes.

Lise looking for a Townsend’s solitaire.

After busting on the solitaire we made a quick run up to Allegan State Game Area to, as Ellen complained, “parse some geese out.” You park under the no parking signs on he highway and scan the farm fields looking for flocks of geese to parse. We did get a Ross’s goose for Barb but nothing to add to our lists.

Then we did dinner at Salt of the Earth in Fennville, Michigan. If you ever have the opportunity to eat there, do it. Even though they don’t serve scrapple, this is worth the trip. An old brick downtown building that was probably a store in a prior life. They have a brick oven that they use for fresh breads and meals. Except for a hardware store and pizza place here isn’t much more in Fennville. Lord knows why Fennville has a restaurant like Salt of the Earth but I’m thankful for it.

Then there was the dark side side of the weekend. I bought a new Dell computer with Windows 8 installed. If you ever have the opportunity to use Windows 8 – don’t. The only thing worse than the Apple iPad interface is Microsoft trying to emulate the Apple iPad interface on a desktop computer. Did these mental midgets ever stop to think that maybe some of us use computers as tools and not as a way to define our lifestyles down at Starbucks? If I wanted an iPad I would have bought an iPad.

Installing software to make the computer useful is another challenge. No more just inserting the disk and checking a box saying you read the license agreement. You need to create a personal account by giving your name, email, name of your first born, and a product code just to get an installation serial number. I love it when I use academic licenses and they ask for my graduation year. I usually pull a Zonker Harris and put in for about 20 years out from now. I am getting a little worried when they start asking for my next of kin. Especially since I typed in the product code wrong.

Then, like a fool I tried to add a 3 Terabyte hard drive to the system. Two screws, two plugs and Windows will take care of everything. So much for my Monday night. Apparently “plug and play” is right up there with other great American lies like; “the war to end all wars”, “mission accomplished”, “compassionate conservatism”, “peace with honor”, “I am not a crook”, and “I have read this license agreement and agree to these terms”. Could add something about not having sex with a white house intern to the list too. I don’t know if that’s as bad as lying about reading the license agreements. Both are a Y chromosome thing.

The species count right now stands at 324 for me, and 306 for Lise on the 338th day of the year. I’m neck and neck with old man time on a percentage basis. I have 92.5% of the goal but 92.3% of the year is shot. So while I’m fighting a Windows hard disk issue tomorrow, old man time will be creeping by me. Story of my life maybe?

Pressure is on. May need to do a UP trip before our Florida trip.

Back home from Delaware. Sorry but Okemos just doesn’t match up. Let’s see, beaches, the ocean, and great birding or corn fields and subdivisions, hmmmmm.

Got one more good bird in Delaware before having to head back here. A great cormorant down at the Indian River Inlet. Lifer for me too. It was crazy windy out on the jetty but worth it to get a lifer.

Molly on the jetty in the wind.

The great cormorant made five new ones for the year this trip. Tried for snow buntings too. Lots of fields that should have had flocks of snow buntings but no go. Lise went to West Lafayette for the holiday and got snow buntings on the way back. So at least I know they aren’t a mythical bird. They do exist somewhere.

I thought we might see the effects of Hurricane/tropical storm/nor’easter Sandy along the coast but there really wasn’t much to see. At Cape Henlopen there was a small dune blowout that allowed you to see the surf from up in the parking area. The rest of the beach and dunes looked pretty much the same. Down at Indian River it was obvious that the road was flooded and sand covered the road.  It’s all clear now and if you weren’t familiar with the place you wouldn’t notice anything. Some of the seasonally closed stores on the Rehobeth boardwalk still had a few sandbags piled up at their doors. Most were open for the holiday shoppers.

Two years ago the place took a hurricane hit and a couple weeks ago the storm of the century barreled through. You couldn’t tell without looking hard. The beach may have changed some but it’s still there. The dunes may have shifted but they’re still there. The dolphins are still jumping just off shore. Sanderlings still run through the surf.  Surf fishermen still catch some of the weirdest looking fish you’ll ever see. It’s an ecological system designed to take extremes and just keep on plugging along. It’s all about adaptability and resilience. Gives a timelessness kind of quality to the place.   

Foggy morning Cape Henlopen.

Foggy morning Cape Henlopen.

Foggy morning Cape Henlopen.

It’s not a pristine wilderness. You’re rarely alone. Everywhere you look there are human impacts. Just about every form of humanity has been through here. Indigenous peoples, settlers, pirates, smugglers, fishermen, traders, farmers, and some combination of the above. If the fishing is slow you smuggle some rum. All have made their mark but somehow the marks get swallowed up and become part of the system. Hopefully the strip malls out on Highway 1 will get swallowed up. Those things are about as classy as napkin rings at Donner Pass.

No idea what these were for. Now they’re just part of the scenery.

Cape Henlopen State Park is a major public beach access site for swimmers, sunbathers, fishermen, and beach lovers. Some of the best birding in Delaware. Guaranteed place to get brown-headed nuthatches. Except for some lookout towers and the occasional bunker most users don’t realize Cape Henlopen State Park was once Fort Miles. Built to prevent ships from going up the Delaware Bay to attack Wilmington or Philadelphia, Fort Miles had a battery of honking big coastal artillery with all the supporting infrastructure. My grandfather was stationed at Fort Miles with the 213th Coastal Artillery before heading to Europe in WWII. Time and shifting sand have removed most of the traces of the fort. People hiking through the park think they are going over small hills but the hills are the tops of old bunkers.

Lookout tower.

People would pay major money for a condo with the view from this tower. The soldiers probably hated it.

Somewhere in those pines there used to be an Army fort.

One big shooting iron.

Another big shooting iron.

The animals seem to tolerate our follies. Long gone docks become roost sites. Turkey vultures love to roost on the lookout towers. Osprey use electrical poles for perches and nest sites. Their wingspan is long enough that on takeoff, their wings could cross wires and electrocute them. Somebody figured out that if you put orange highway cones on the poles, the birds can roost there without getting electrocuted. Sitting on an orange traffic cone on top of an electrical pole doesn’t seem to bother the ospreys.

Old pier.

Osprey adapting.

Since getting back we got another species. Thanks to dedicated birders and the local email listserve we got a western grebe here on Lake Lansing. We also chased a whooping crane that was spotted down in Jackson by the State Prison. Actually on the prison farm fields amongst hundreds of sandhill cranes. And yes, we did have a guard come by to ask what we were doing. We obviously were not the first ones because he asked if we were checking on the cranes. We went to the Heanlhe preserve to watch the cranes come in, hoping the whooper would show up there. In about an hour and a half time span over 6,000 sandhill cranes were counted coming into the sanctuary. No whooper though. Still, watching over 6,000 cranes fly in was kind of nice.

The great cormorant and western grebe bring my total to 322. The snow buntings and western grebe bring Lise’s total to 304 and we have a combined total of 324. Still some chasing to do around here but we are going to need that Florida trip to hit 350.

Thanksgiving day. Molly and I are in Lewes, Delaware, doing Thanksgiving with my sister Anita and hopefully getting a few more species. So far this trip I got five new species; Red-throated loon, brant, northern gannet, black scoter and northern pintail. I’m now at 320 species, which is 91% of the goal. At the moment I’m beating Old Man Time with 89% of the year now history.

We left Okemos Tuesday after school driving east. Had a pretty uneventful drive. Just lots of time staring blankly down the highway. We got as far as Somerset, Penna., where we stopped at a motel for the night. Lise was sure we wouldn’t find a motel room. Under the assumption we would be shivering in the car trying to sleep at a highway rest stop she packed sleeping bags for us.

The highway rest stop may have been safer for me. I was peacefully sleeping away when I woke up thinking I was being hit. Nobody was pummeling me so I dozed back off. When I got up in the morning there was a pillow laying by my bed. Apparently my darling daughter was trying to silence my snoring and did so by throwing a pillow at me. She says she did it in her sleep.

Wednesday morning we drove to Joss Pool Cues in Towson, Maryland.  I’ve been interested in getting a Joss cue but wanted to try one out first. So we went to the shop where they make them and I bought my own Christmas present. Serial number 121625. 18.1 ounces of straight shooting beauty. Dark stained birds-eye maple, a black band with mother of pearl inlays, and a black and white speckled Irish linen wrap. Slicker than black ice. The kids may go shoeless but Daddy has a sharp looking pool cue.

Got into Lewes Wednesday as Anita was getting off work so we headed out to Cape Henlopen to catch the last hour of light. At the fishing pier we got the red-throated loon and brant. Then we bopped on over the Cape to the Atlantic side and got the northern gannet. All during a quite pleasant evening and sunset. Capped off with dinner at the Dogfish Head Brewpub. Don’t get much better than that.

Looking down the pier.

Looking over the bay.

Cape Henlopen dunes.

Trail to the beach, looking from the ocean back over the Cape.

Today Anita and I went down to Indian River Inlet and saw black scoters riding the waves. The water was so rough that you just fix the scope on the general area where they are and then wait for them to pop up on a wave. They’re up for a couple seconds, then the wave goes down. One could almost get seasick watching the waves bounce around through a scope. A few other things that seem to thrive in really rough water were there too. Like long-tailed ducks and crazy fishermen. Tough critters, all of them. On the way back we swung by Gordon’s Pond in Rehobeth and found the northern pin-tails. So now it’s on to other possible but less likely species. Or maybe just some time kicking back with my camera while Molly and Anita do Black Friday. Personally, I’d rather have electric shocks than fight the bargain crazed hordes.

Indian River Inlet jetty. Some birds actually prefer this habitat.

Fisherman on the jetty across the inlet. Getting swept to sea in your waders is more dignified than being trampled in a Walmart Black Friday sale.

We finally got a new species and a good one at that. A rufous hummingbird, about a thousand miles out of its range. This little devil came from the Northwest somewhere. We had to make an hour drive over to the wilds of Kalamazoo. It was coming to a feeder at the back of someone’s house. They also have a home business, Jake’s Concrete. Pull around back and park on the grass. Just don’t block the driveway for the trucks. Who would have thought that Jake’s Concrete would still have a hummingbird feeder up in November. Even more, who would have thought they would allow the news with directions to their home to go out on a statewide listserve. They gotta be nice people.

Rufous humming bird, wondering what he is doing in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

The rufous hummingbird brings my total up to 316 and Lise’s to 302 on the 319th day of the year. I’m at 90% of the goal, Lise at 86% and 87% of the year is gone. We could potentially get a couple more species around here but we will not get to 350 staying locally. Even chasing around Michigan it is unlikely we would get to 350. Molly and I are going to Delaware for Thanksgiving and we are all going to Florida for Christmas. I have a fair shot at 350 species but we are going to need to work a bit more for Lise.

Like sand through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives. Is that show on anymore? They gotta be through 20 generations of affairs and illegitimate children by now.

The eleventh hour, of the eleventh day, of the eleventh month. Many thanks to those that deserve the thanks.

Spent the weekend trying to get the few new species that are still possible locally. Saturday was quite pleasant so we tried Rose Lake Game Area and Sleepy Hollow State Park. Mostly trying for pintail ducks or white-fronted goose. Snow buntings have been reported in the Lower Peninsula so one of them would have been nice too. No luck for any new species but at least we got out of a really nice day.

Molly needed some National Honor Society volunteer hours so she spent today at the Pokagon State Park Nature Center. Lise and I went out and about trying for the same species as yesterday. We found ourselves in beautiful downtown Mongo, Indiana. Could this be where Mel Brooks got the name for Alex Karras’ character in Blazing Saddles?  Alex Karras is almost as big as Mongo, Indiana. It has about six buildings and looks like that’s about as big as it ever has been. But then, there are the remains of the Mongo Hotel which seem to speak of former glory. Mongo isn’t on the way to anywhere. Why there was ever the need for a hotel in Mongo is beyond me.

The Mongo Hotel. Looks like it is run by the Bates family.

A friendly face at the nature center reception desk. Or maybe it’s Talk Like a Pirate Day – AAAARRRRGGGH matey!

We had lunch at an establishment in Orland, Indiana, called the Draft Horse Saloon. We each had that Indiana special, a breaded tenderloin. Pork, not draft horse. The raw material of scrapple, breaded and deep fried. Twice as big as the puny hamburger bun it comes on. One of those great, line-your-arteries meals. The Michigan border was only about three miles north of us but you just can’t get breaded tenderloins in Michigan. They don’t know what they’re missing.

YEAAAAAAAA

If you ever have the opportunity to go to a high school girl’s league swim meet – don’t. Find something less painful like having a root canal, pulling off a fingernail, or listening to a Congressional hearing.

Molly’s swim team had their league meet Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. Over four hours each day. Friday was qualifications. Heat after heat of each event. The top 16 people for each event got to swim Saturday. There were only two heats of each event on Saturday but they held award ceremonies between events. Plus an hour of diving.

Lise and I were press ganged into being timers. The natatorium was packed with very enthusiastic fans. If you blew an event timing they threw you to the angry crowd. It wasn’t pretty.

The noise was deafening. There was a constant background roar but the finish of a close race took it to a new level. I’ve done aircraft carrier operations. This was worse. We couldn’t watch the events because we had to focus on the swimmer in our lane. You could always tell something exciting was happening because the noise level rose to a pitch that forced blood out of your ears. Add to this some heat and chlorine fumes. I could take on hell now.

Molly’s team won the league meet. They beat Grand Ledge, the only team that beat them during regular season meets. So the two teams shared the league title. Apparently the same thing happened last year with the roles reversed. They beat Grand Ledge in the regular meet but Grant Ledge won the league meet.

Molly and teammates.

Molly jumping off the high dive after the meet.

Today we went with Barb down to Jackson County chasing a white-fronted goose. No luck there. Barb needed a trumpeter swan for her Michigan list so we stopped at the Haennle Sanctuary around dusk. No trumpeter swan but a couple thousand sandhill cranes flying into the wetland. Pretty cool.

Not much for us bird wise this past week. With crazy schedules and only one working car we didn’t get in any chasing . Tomorrow and Saturday aren’t looking too good either. We are timers at the high school league swim meet. Shame we can’t be out there chasing. Lot’s of crazy birds around the Great Lakes, compliments of the former hurricane Sandy. Downgrading him from a hurricane to a tropical storm seems to have just made him mad. Let’s ee, maybe I’ll put this tanker down in the middle of Manhattan. How about rearranging the houses in this subdivision. Now do you believe in climate change? Still want to build right on the beach?

I guess you have to find a bright side where ever you can. Like Mayor Bloomberg’s comment that New York,“hasn’t had a murder in two or three days now.” Can’t expect that to last. With all the bagel shops and delis closed I expect food riots in Lower Manhattan any time now. I wonder if Fox News has figured out a way to blame President Obama for Sandy yet. I’m sure Sandy only happened because of Obama’s economic policies.    

The Great Lakes had some wild weather with 30 foot waves reported on Michigan. Birders around the lakes have reported a dovekie on Lake Michigan, brandt at Saginaw Bay and Port Huron, little gull, Sabine’s gull and black-legged kittiwake in Saginaw Bay, red phalarope, white-winged, black, and surf scoters  at Port Huron, and red crossbills at Lake St. Clair. Also a vermillion flycatcher up in Alger County of the Upper Peninsula but I seriously doubt that is a result of Sandy.

We got out to Lake Lansing for a bit this evening. Hoping something crazy would blow in like out on the big water. No interesting east coast Atlantic Ocean birds for us though. A ton of gulls, one of which was a Franklin’s. For truth in reporting, the regulars at the lake spotted the Franklin’s in the middle of about a thousand other gulls. Once we knew it was there we could find it, but it is highly unlikely we would have found it on our own.
                    
Franklin’s are a good bird for here. They nest out in the upper Great Plains and way up into Canada, migrating through the Great Plains down to South America. The regulars at Lake Lansing have been spotting Franklin’s on and off for the past couple weeks. We already have a Franklin’s so the count hasn’t budged. Still a good bird to see.

Thanks to Lise’s sister Gretchen and the listserves we got surf scoters last Friday. Our van is the repair shop getting fixed from the deer strike. Word came over the listserve that surf scoters were on Lake Lansing. Molly had our working car at swim  practice. Luckily Gretchen was visiting. For some reason she wasn’t too interested in the scoters but she did let us use her car.  Number 315 for me and 301 for Lise. I’m at 90% of the goal and Lise at 86% with 82.5% of the year gone. Unfortunately that red line keeps getting closer.

Between strange weather patterns and the normal fall migration, all kinds of things are popping up around the area. A cattle egret showed up at Lake Lansing after we left Friday. Also on Friday a pair of white winged scoters showed up and then left within an hour. Saturday I got out for a little bit hoping to catch something popping into Lake Lansing. No new species but I did get to watch a peregrine falcon harassing gulls for about a half hour.  After half an hour the peregrine never took a gull. I would have expected better from one of the fastest birds alive. Capable of something like 200 mph in a dive.  This one just flew back and forth over the gulls, spooking them up into the air. He chased a few of them around but never took one down. Maybe he was just screwing with them to keep them on their toes. Kind of what I have to occasionally do with Molly and Lindsay. It’s just gotta be done. Can’t let them get complacent.    

Large numbers of snow buntings have been reported in the Upper Peninsula and a few stragglers seen here in the Lower Peninsula. I went out for a bit this afternoon hoping to catch a snow bunting or maybe a white fronted goose or American pipit. It was pretty windy so no luck on them guys but I did find an inductee into the ambiguous sign collection. The question is, are the swine doing the research and teaching or are the swine being taught and researched upon?

Here piggy, piggy, piggy.

We finally scored this evening. Lately most of our trips have been weather disasters. Biblical rains or tornado strength winds. Or just the opposite. Last night there was a 100% chance of rain right at the time the gulls would have been coming in. So we blew it off and stayed home. Guess what, no rain but several lesser black-backed gulls spotted.

This evening we did a trip to Lake Lansing to chase lesser black-backed gulls. Comfortably warm, no wind and the lake was beautifully calm. This would have been a nice evening to be out for any reason but it got better. Lise spotted a long sought-after lesser black-backed gull for us. Then we stayed around and one of the great local birders spotted a Franklin’s gull. Two new species for the year and the Franklin’s gull was a lifer. That brings our totals  up to 314 for me and an even 300 for Lise.

We are still fighting time though. I’m at 89.7% of the goal, Lise is at 85.7 but 81.5% of the year is gone. Old man time just keeps ticking on, relentlessly catching up all the while. Now I know how Obama feels.

Winter species are drifting in but we have a couple handicaps to deal with. It’s starting to get dark early. Not much time for birding by the time I get home from work and get ready to go out.

Then there is the little matter of the deer that committed suicide using our car. We were coming home from our Indiana owl banding trip. It was ~1:30 AM, a mile from home after a three-hour drive , and this thing jumps out of nowhere smack into the front of the van. That close to home and this damn beast decides things are just going too peachy for us. Didn’t get the carcass either. Gutting a deer on Okemos Road and hanging it in the front yard would be a bit too gauche for here. Might be acceptable behavior in Haslett or Holt but this is Okemos.

The real irony is that we drove home that night instead of getting a motel to save the $90. So now we are trying to juggle three schedules around one vehicle. Make that four schedules. The lizard had to go to the vet for her manicure today.