Author: turndoozie

Lise and I spent the past couple days in Maine for my nephew Zack and Nikki’s wedding. We gave ourselves a couple days to play before the blessed nuptials. The happy parents, my brother Rich and his wife, the good Saint Amy, scouted out some cool places for us. We stayed in Portland and explored around the coastal area from Portland to parts east. Really neat area. Lots of history and beautiful rocky coasts. Got some good birds too.

The happy couple, Nikki and Zack. Nikki is the pretty one. Look out Chicago.

The happy parents, Saint Amy and Rich. Amy is the pretty one.

Pemaquid Point Lighthouse.

Coastal Maine.

Portland is an interesting town. The downtown waterfront district is still a working waterfront, for fishing at least. The warehouses have been turned into shops and restaurants. There are several brew pubs. Great beer and seafood in little non-chain bars right on the waterfront. I had a haddock stew that was heavenly.

Ed as a tourist.

The area specialty is this wicked looking crustacean called a lobster. Excuse me, that’s pronounced lobstah. Unfortunately for these beasts they evolved to become rather tasty. Sweet meat that is high in Omega 3 fatty acids, low in calories, and no cholesterol. A weight watchers dream. Then we dip them in melted butter. Go figure. I wonder if you can make scrapple out of lobster?

Before.

After. Eating as performance art.
                           
People in Maine put forth some brutally frank self assessments. This is directly from the web page of the Maine Office of Tourism about the Petit Manan Point Lighthouse.  “Locally known as ‘tit Manan, this is one of the state’s tallest lighthouses, rising 123 feet, and also one of the least attractive. The high stone tower seems to have no relation to the charmless keeper’s house and outbuildings.”  (http://www.visitmaine.com/organization/5028/petit_manan_point/). Now that should really draw the turisticos in. Sounds like something a disgruntled employee would write on his way out the door.

Then there is the self styled “Mediocre Deli.” That’s gotta have them knocking the doors down to get in. I didn’t feel the need to see if this was a gimmick or truth in advertising.

An average kind of place? Still better than half the places?

The one place I detected a note of bragging was in reference to something called lobstah rolls. A lobstah roll consists of a lobster seafood salad on a toasted hot dog bun. Lobstah rolls seem to be in the same category as Indiana pork tenderloin sandwiches or scrapple and Lebanon Bologna. Food for the soul. Every shack along the coast has lobstah rolls and each one advertises their roll as “the best lobstah roll in Maine.”

Best lobstah rolls in Maine. This is not a copyrighted line. You see it everywhere.

We did our pilgrimage to outdoor wear Mecca, that high holy shrine of yuppiedom, the L.L. Bean flagship ship store in Freeport Maine. Open 24/7. In all fairness the store is different than the catalogs. It has everything in the catalogs plus much, much more. This place is a Yankee general store on steroids. They got the sow’s ears and the silk purses. You can buy everything from shotgun shells to a tasteful bedroom set that costs about the same as a trailer in Delaware. All firearms coming in for repair or trade in must be checked in through customer service. Coffee shop and cafe on premises. Puts IKEA to shame.

This all started with a pair of boots. There’s a statue of old L.L. himself and one of a boot too. I think we were supposed to lay a scrapple or lobstah roll offering at L.L.’s feet but I didn’t have any with me. No discounts for me I guess.

Ed and Lise on the alter. Lise is the pretty one.                            

We got some birding in too. I got six new species for the list; piping plover, black guillemots, Wilson’s phalarope, black tern, chestnut-sided warbler, and common eider. Black guillemot and common eider are lifers for me. Lise, got the same species plus about ten that I had already got in Delaware. We just missed the puffin tours though. They start next week.

Coming back we came through Ontario, Canada. The trip became part of a true North American big year when Lise spotted her broad-winged hawk in Ontario. We got on the Ontario highway at exit zero and had to go to exit 318. We figured that 318 miles would be about six hours of driving. Then the exits started flying by. I thought we found a window in time. Warp speed, Scotty! Give me everything she’s got. Turns out the exits on the map were in kilometers, not miles. The Honda was not going warp speed and we were being passed by a lot of Canadian drivers. Anyway, that really shortened the trip.

All in all, between Delaware and Maine it was a great road trip. Couple thousand miles of driving, good birds, good eating, plus a little culture thrown in. Now it’s back to the salt mine. The species counts now stand at 267 for me, 226 for Lise, and a family total of 272.

At the moment we are in Portland Maine for Zack’s wedding. It’s hard to get writing done and postings up when on the road so this is a Delaware post. It may apply to this part of Maine too. I need to check it out a bit more.

Had a crazy day on Tuesday. Got up at 4:00 to catch the sunrise. The Cape Henlopen gate is closed from sunset to sunrise so I had to park at the fishing pier and walk the mile to the point. Had a beautiful sunrise, saw dolphins cavorting about, got sanderlings for the list, saw a major dragonfly migration, hopped the ferry to Cape May, got Wilson’s storm petrels on the Bay somewhere between Cape Henlopen and Cape May, then drove from Cape May to north of Boston.

Henlopen sunrise.

I’ve spent the past week or so going coastal. Going coastal isn’t just about being near the ocean. It’s being near the ocean and accepting a certain a state of mind, a way of looking at things. Not just the “time flies when your having rum” state of mind. That’s an important part of it, but not all of it. Part of the mind set is an awareness of your settings.

The coastal state of mind is what makes Dogfish Head Brewery or Sambo’s Tavern so good.  Thrasher’s fries are great. Eating Thasher’s fries while hearing the waves crash is heavenly. Going coastal is the attitude that allows for some tolerance, or even envy, of pirates. Kind of a Robin Hood thing. Sure they’re a bunch of thugs and thieves but at least they’re good sailors. They use honest seamanship to rob people. They don’t plunder your livelihood while sitting on their butts in the boardroom of Bain Capitol. That’s just plain thievery and requires no knowledge of the winds. May as well walk into a bank with a gun.

Dogfish Head brewery. Good food and good drinking. They make their own beer and their own bacon. Can’t get much better than that.

It’s a mind set hard to explain to anyone not familiar with the coast. Everyone and everything around here is, in one way or another, tied to the rhythm of the ocean. Consciously or unconsciously it permeates the soul. People come to the beach and do nothing but sit stare at the ocean for hours. Something there speaks to us.

While birding at Prime Hook another birder happened up. One of his first comments was, “Have you seen the gull?” By “the gull” he meant the Sabine’s gull at Missisilpin inlet. Maybe it was the Kowa scope but he immediately assumed I should know about “the gull”. People came from four states to see “the gull”. I said I was there earlier in the day but no gulls were there. He immediately said, “the low tide hits there around 6:30 so there should be some gulls there about then.” He knew that the presence of gulls at Missisilpin was tied to the tidal phase and he knew the time of the low tide.

I’m just a water rat at heart. I like being in, on, or near, just about any water body. I’d be perfectly happy meeting my maker wearing my waders in Sand River. I’d make him wait until the light was too poor for photography but still it wouldn’t bother me meeting him there.

But there’s something that sets ocean apart from other water bodies. Maybe it’s the sheer size. You can get lost on the ocean. There is enough elbow space you don’t feel crowded. The ocean can swallow up a lot of people. Even on a crazy holiday weekend it can suck up all the yahoo weekend boaters with room to spare. If we’re lucky some of the dumber ones get to meet Davey Jones and the gene pool gets cleaned up a bit.

Maybe it’s the constant change. The ocean is never static. Other systems change but often the changes are subtle and protracted. Not the ocean. Here change is constant and noticeable every minute of the day. There is always some kind of movement, always something going on. Every tide cycle takes something away and brings something new. Each cycle the beach is sculpted differently than the time before. Not sure what it is, I just know that I belong on or near the ocean.

Birding has been great. Delaware as a whole is a great birding place. The statewide Delaware list for the year is at something like 219 species. Not bad for a state with only three counties. You can drive the length of the state in about two hours. About two thirds of my goal for the year could be found just in Delaware.

Catbird – common but try to get a picture of one.

The shorebird migration is happening. A number of the species have already come through but ruddy turnstones, semipalmated sandpipers, black-bellied plovers, and red knots are coming through now.  In the right places thousands are counted in any given day.

Flying shorebirds.

Semipalmated sandpipers.

Mostly ruddy turnstones

Dunlin.

Semipalmated plover.

Semipalmated sandpiper.

Least sandpiper.
               
The shorebird migration, especially that of the red knots, is closely linked to the horseshoe crab migration. The crabs come ashore, mate, lay their eggs, and if they can, head back out to sea. The shorebirds come migrating in and fuel up on the eggs, getting enough energy to make it to parts way far north.

Mating horseshoe crabs.

Horseshoe crab party.

Party’s over.

Horseshoe crabs are rather ugly leftovers from the Jurrasic Period. For a long time they were not really appreciated by humans. I can remember my grandfather grousing when his grandchildren would throw turned over crabs back into the water because the crabs would take your fish bait. It was always disappointing when you though you were hauling in some lunker and it turned out to be one of these monsters. The crabs were massively harvested with trawlers to be ground up for fertilizer. Crab numbers plummeted and so did the migrating shorebirds. Once the migration connection was realized several states restricted crab harvests. Now people volunteer to go out and do crab censuses. Crab numbers are up and so are shorebird numbers. Just like magic.

Delaware is an interesting state with a lot of coastal habitat preserved. Most of my birding has been at Cape Helopen State Park, Bombay Hook NWR, Prime Hook NWR, and Port Mahon. All four are great places.

Cape Henlopen is here in Lewes. This is the point where the Delaware Bay and the Atlantic Ocean meet. During WWII it was Fort Miles, an army base with large coastal guns designed to protect Wilmington or Philadelphia by preventing enemy ships from going up the Delaware Bay. There was a companion base at Cape May, New Jersey. My Grandfather was stationed at Fort Miles before shipping out to Europe. The park has the ocean, the bay, open dune systems, and pine forests. Sure thing species include various gulls and terns, American oyster catchers, night hawks, chuck-will-widows, prairie warblers, pine warblers, and brown-headed nuthatches.

Cape Henlopen. Delaware Bay to the left, Atlantic Ocean beyond the point.

Bombay Hook and Prime Hook have similar ecological systems. A lot of estuary systems with open water and coastal marshes interspersed with grasslands or forests. Both refuges have a number of impoundments where water levels are controlled. Bombay Hook is renowned as a major shorebird migration area with a driving tour around the impoundments. I have been at Bombay Hook when there were thousands of shorebirds in the impoundments.

Bombay Hook salt marsh.

Bombay Hook is right outside the town of Leipsic. Leipsic was founded in 1720 and since then their major source of income has been speeding tickets. Leipsic does have Sambo’s Tavern. Sambo’s sits right on the Leipsic River and the fishing, crab, and oyster boats use their dock for unloading.

Sambo’s.

View from the dining room – oyster boat coming in.

Sambo’s is the place to go after a long morning at Bombay Hook. It has a lot of character, due in no small part to the characters hanging out at the bar. The dining area is a large room with newspaper covered tables, mismatched chairs, and a roll of paper towels on the table. These folks are set up for some serious messy eating, mostly in the form of crustaceans you smack apart with mallets. You gotta love a meal they serve with mallets. Doesn’t work too well with pancakes but is essential for crabs.

Instead of the crabs I usually go for their fried oysters. As Jimmy Buffet says, “Give me oysters and beer, every day of the year and I’ll feel fine.” In this case the preferred beer is Yuengling draft, a fine Pennsylvania tradition. Oldest legal brewery in the United Sates. Family owned and managed since 1829.

OK, this is a slightly off topic rant. Pennsylvania also used to produce another great independent beer called Rolling Rock. It was a fine quaffing beer and went great with crabs, crab cakes, steamed clams, and playing darts or pool in a dark bar. Then Anheuser Busch bought the brewery and moved production from Latrobe Pa. to New Jersey. New Jersey for God’s sake. They claimed that there would be no difference in the water and no difference in the beer. Let’s see, untainted mountain spring water or something out of the Passaic River. Which would I want to drink? By the time any water in New Jersey makes it into a bottle it’s been in and out of dozens of bladders. Ann Rand may think this is the way to go but I sure don’t. OK, rant over, back to the story line.

A bit south of Bombay Hook is Port Mahon. This place was a port for fishing boats and I believe tankers at one time. I can remember my Grandfather going there to buy fish right off the boats. It consists of a road servicing docks along the Delaware Bay coastline.

The road is a great example of man verses nature and man losing. For decades the State would build the road up, then the next good storm or a really good tide would tear it out. I think they finally gave up on it. There are a couple working docks but mostly the skeletons of docks long dead. Crabbers, oyster men, and fishermen launch small boats there but otherwise the use is from day fishermen and birders. Port Mahon is a great shorebird place. Years ago this is where Lise and I got our life Eurasian Widgeon, thanks to Anita’ sharp eyes.

Bet you didn’t think a Honda Odyssey could Baja over this, did you?

Long dead docks and piers.

Prime Hook has a lot of habitat but it does not have the accessibility or the renown as Bombay Hook. One nice thing is that Prime Hook is a lot closer to Lewes than Bombay Hook is. The more northern part of the refuge has a colony of several hundred nesting black skimmers. Really cool birds but tough to get pictures of them. 

Prime Hook in the fog.

Clapper rail, calling for girls.

Clapper rail in the fog.

Sneaking around.

Great egrets.

Snowy egret.

Great blue heron preening for the ladies.

Black skimmer foraging.

Black skimmer in fog.

The only problem with Bombay Hook, Prime Hook, and Port Mahon are the nasty flesh eating bugs they have there. These aren’t just blood sucking parasites like ticks or TV evangelists. These are piranha with wings. Tiny bugs with the attitude of a great white shark. They can strip a grown man to the bone in two minutes. As soon as you park they swarm around the car waiting for you to dare expose some skin. My pasty white skin looks like an order of honky eggs and scrapple to them.  Meat’s back on the table boys!

Man eating bugs. Taken from the safety of the Honda.

One other place of note is Trapp Mill Pond State Park. The park as a canoe trail through a cypress forest. Anita and I did the trail on kayaks and I got three new species there. This is almost primordial. After crossing the small lake you are in a dark narrow channel kayaking through the cypress trees. This is where a dinosaur could pop up, or maybe the pterodactyls from Johnny Quest. Too cool!

Cypress swamp.

This has been a good birding trip. I have gotten over 50 species this trip, including Sabine’s gull, a lifer. I am now over 250 species for the year. This is a great birding area. If I counted all the species I’ve seen, including ones that I got other places, my species count would easily be over a hundred. There is such a mix of very different habitat types in close proximity to each other. More on that later. After all, this started as a birding blog.

Preening great blue heron.

I’m staying with my sister Anita in Lewes. Lewes is an old city. They call themselves the  first city in the first state.  The First State moniker comes from being the first to ratify the constitution. Lewes was originally founded by the Dutch as Zwaanendael in 1631. Lots of old historic buildings. The older buildings all have names, usually associated with the first owner.

Ryves Holt Home.Wonder if the mortgage is paid off yet?

Lewes has a long maritime tradition. Including piracy and smuggling. When Captain William Kidd was trying to sneak inconspicuously back into the country he was riding aboard another captain’s ship. That ship broke down and had to limp into Lewes for repairs. The ship’s captain mentioned to the locals that he had a load of rum aboard the ship. Bad move. Some reformed pirates, if there is such a thing, overheard this and decided to row out to the ship. They recognized Kidd and a rum fueled party ensued. Kidd’s cover was blown and he was eventually hung. I guess you could call it a really bad hangover. The real irony for Kidd is that he was sailing under a warrant from the King of England to engage pirates and steal what they had already stolen. Because of the party, William Penn issued a proclamation that all future reformed pirates were to be repatriated to inland areas with no access to the ocean.

During the Revolutionary War arms and supplies for Washington’s army were smuggled through the British blockade at Lewes and then hauled overland. During the War of 1812 Lewes was blockaded and shelled by the British. Sore losers I guess. One of the older buildings still has a cannon ball in its foundation from the shelling.

Recently piracy has become a bit less glamourous here in Lewes. There are still pirates, they just aren’t as blatant about it. Its like they are afraid to raise the Jolly Roger even though they could put the best of the buccaneers to shame. They still relieve the unsuspecting of their money, just with a more insidious technique. Instead of sloops and brigs the brigands now use parking meters, boutiques and shoppes. The weapon of choice is no longer a cutlass but a Master Card. Ultimately the same effect. Unsuspecting tourists come with money and leave with none. Never knew what hit them, especially if they have kids with them. Cleaned out more effectively than a broadside of 24 pounders. Piracy does come in many forms however, and some of us still prefer to unabashedly sail under the Jolly Roger, however best we can. Yes I am a pirate, just 200 years too late as Jimmy Buffet says. Prepare to be boarded.

Piracy is a state of mind as much as an occupation.

Lewes has some high points, including Notting Hill Coffee and Kings Ice Cream. Notting Hill roasts their own coffee beans inside the Lewes Bake Shoppe. They roast in the evening and the whole town smells like coffee.It’s great. A walk along the canal looking at boats and smelling coffee roasting.

Good coffee.

Along the canal smelling roasting coffee. A lot better than the usual tidal smells.

Kings ice cream is one of the best in the country. You can’t really have a best ice cream in the country. Too many variables. All ice cream is good it’s just that some is better than others at any given time. Kind of like scrapple. There isn’t a best scrapple. It’s all good. Some may be better than others but it’s all good.

So the usual gig is to get some ice cream at Kings, then stroll through the graveyard at St. Pete’s Episcopal Church. The Church first established a mission in 1708 and then finally built a church in the early 1720s. The modern church was built in 1854. Still used for services and weddings but you have a bunch of sticky fingered tourists watching the ceremonies.

The new church – 1854

Ed eating Kings. Shame you’re not here Molly.

There is good birding and there is great birding. Good birding means you get out. Great birding means you see something new. Friday morning Lise and I thought we would get some in some quick birding at Legg Park.  It was what you would call good birding. We obviously missed most of the warbler migration. Still, at least we were out.

Interesting how some things imprint on you forever. When we first met, Lise was working at McCormick’s Creek State Park,  managing Indiana’s largest nature center. Every May she was terrorized with yellow buses filled with school groups. So we are strolling along, in Legg Park straining to hear warbler calls and Lise suddenly calls out, “school group.” Long before I heard anything she picks up the vibes. I think she felt the sound before she actually heard anything. Like a good stereo speaker where you feel the base, not just hear it. Not only did we run into a school group, it was a school group in waders. Those are some mighty brave teachers in my mind.

We have been seeing a lot of Northern orioles. Something this brilliant has to be a tropical bird. It’s like a glass of orange juice with wings.

Friday afternoon I headed back east. Made it to Lebanon (properly pronounced Lepnan). Actually to Lynn and Jack’s in Jonestown. Jonestown, properly pronounced Chonestawn, is  Lebanon’s version of the burbs. Lebanon was founded as Steitztown in 1720. Jonestown came along in a relatively recent 1761. Snobbish newcomers too good to settle downtown. Probably didn’t even use mud to chink their homes. That would have been too provincial.

Lebanon is an interesting place.  Lots of history and character there, and not all of it good. Some beautiful old buildings made from native stone. George Washington stayed here while buying cannons at the nearby Cornwall ore mine. About the only thing different since then is that we paved the streets and added electricity.

Around the time of the Civil War, six Irishmen came up with an interesting fundraising scheme. They took out a life insurance policy on some guy, then they murdered him to claim the insurance. At the time I’m sure this seemed a good idea. They all had red hair and blue eyes and became known as the blue-eyed six. Arthur Conan Doyle was passing through the area at the time of their trial. Their little escapade inspired the Sherlock Holmes story “The Red-headed League.”

After their hanging a couple of the Six were buried at a place called Moonshine Church, out by Indiantown Gap. Some of my high school friends decided to have a seance in the graveyard one night. At the time this seemed like a good idea. I believe alcohol was involved. A loud screaming whinnying sound scared the holy hell out of them and sent them scrambling for their cars. As a birder now I’m pretty sure it was a screech owl, not the ghost of the Six chasing them. Then again, you never know. This is Lebanon.

Lebanon is of course the home of Lebanon bologna. The only true Lebanon bologna, the stuff legends are made of. Lebanon bologna from any other place, like the crap Oscar Meyer sells as “Lebanon Style Bologna” is not Lebanon Bologna. I didn’t know there was any other kind of bologna until I joined the Navy and they fed us this nasty gray stuff. On New Year’s Eve Lebanon drops a 150 pound ball of Weaver’s Lebanon Bologna from the top of a fire truck ladder. Life don’t get much better than that.

Needless to say, this is the land of great eating. Nothing even remotely good for you but it all tastes so good. I happened by the Lebanon Farmer’s Market. Weavers, one of my favorite butchers and the source of great Lebanon bologna, has a booth there. They had 14 types of sausages, six types of bologna, and four types of bacon for sale. The bacon comes in large piles, not pre-packaged in a sealed plastic bag. Usually you get a price break when you buy ten pounds or more. Just about what you need for a week of good eating. They also had other assorted meats, meat products, and pieces of animals. Meat products are things like that lovely delicacy scrapple. Scrapple is best described as every part of the pig except the curl in the tail. Scrapple is the good stuff. I won’t get into pan pudding except to say I’m about the only person in my immediate family that will eat it.

One of my favorite local delicacies is called honky, or hunky, eggs. Bacon, potatoes, peppers, and onions fried and scrambled with eggs. A real heart attack on a plate.  Pair honkey eggs with a slab of scrapple and you have what is best described as a coffin nail. But wait, how can this get better? Why you melt some version of cheese on it. Doesn’t matter what kind, just melt it. This wouldn’t be too bad except the portions are what you would serve to people still plowing the back 40. Enough cholesterol to fell an ox. I love it.

Honkey eggs with a side of scrapple. Life is good.

Honkey eggs are one of the few things my Dad would cook and we could actually eat. He loved making them for Molly. I can remember him meticulously cutting the bacon into fine pieces so they would render perfectly. This would drive my Mom crazy. “Jerry, she’s going to starve before you get the eggs made.”  He would just smile and go on with his meticulous cutting. Everything had to be perfect for his little angel.

I went with Lynn and Jack to Miller’s for breakfast. Good stuff. At Miller’s the waitress automatically brings a cup of coffee and then asks if you would like water. Most of their vegetables are deep fried, including the deep fried corn bits. Everything except the macaroni and cheese, which they consider a vegetable. I guess if your mom is going to make you eat vegetables you may as well get them deep fried.

Miller’s – no reservations required.

Heisey’s – another great diner.
   
Then there is Shuey’s pretzels. Third generation pretzel makers. Best pretzels in the world. Period. No discussion. These are hand made pretzels fresh out of a small brick oven. Where else will you find a line on Saturday mornings waiting for pretzels to come out of a brick oven. Everyone from bikers in leathers to elderly ladies using walkers. The fat gal covered in tattoos was picking up orders for three different people.

The best pretzels ever. Period.

And we can’t forget Wertz’s Candy store. They have been there for over 80 years. Wertz’s caramel corn making was featured in the TV program World’s Dirtiest Jobs. This is where you go for hand dipped chocolate covered Shuey’s pretzels. Milk or dark chocolate. Life is good. Wertz’s also makes chocolate covered bacon. Even I haven’t gone there yet.

Good stuff.

One of Lebanon’s historical sites is the Union Canal Tunnel. Known to us as the Old Tunnel. It’s the oldest man-made tunnel in the United States, built in the 1820s as part of the Union Canal system. Hand carved through solid rock. Black powder, picks, and strong backs. My family has been in Lebanon for many generations. Rumor has it that an ancestor on my Mother’s side helped build the tunnel. My dad taught most of his children and grandchildren to fish there. This was “Pappy’s secret fishing hole.”

The Historical Society has done a good job cleaning the place up. It hasn’t always been as nice as it is now. When I was a teenager with my friends we walked back into the tunnel and fired shotguns. Don’t know why. That’s just what you do when you are a teenage boy with a shotgun. Seemed like a good idea at the time. Did I mention that these were the same guys that did the seance at Moonshine Church? Maybe joining the Navy and leaving Lebanon was a good thing for me.

I found the posted rules kind of interesting. According to rule number #10, immoral acts are not allowed in the park. I guess that means you can’t use the park as a staging area to invade some country because you think they have weapons of mass destruction. Nothing about shooting a shotgun inside the tunnel though.

In Lebanon holding hands out of wedlock is probably considered immoral.

Saturday I made it down to Slower Lower Delaware. Anita and I made a run down to Rehobeth for an order of Thrasher’s fries. The best French fries ever. Period. No discussion.

The best fries ever. Period.

Mine all mine and none for Molly.

Found out why this are is known as Slower Lower Delaware. This is Kirby The Wonder Dog and the customers have to walk around him to get in or out. It is his store and he doesn’t really care if any humans come in or not.

Kirby.

Today was great birding. Added over 25 species to my list. First I need to get some sleep. More to follow.

Marsh wren at Bombay Hook – you shall not pass.

At day 134 of the year the count now stands at 204 for me, 206 for Lise, and a combined count of 209. I’ll do a little more numerical analysis in a bit. I need to come up with some daily index based on our species count, the phase of the moon, and the Federal prime interest rate. Something FOX News would use to trash the Obama administration. I believe FOX is an acronym for Facts Optional Xenophobes.
                    
We have been getting out but our counts have not been spectacular. We get a couple new species each outing but we are not seeing some of the leaps I thought we would during this season. The migration seems a bit spotty. When we were more active down in Indiana we would get into waves of migrating warblers. Flocks of mixed species passing through an area. Here we haven’t really hit large mixed warbler flocks. We are finding things in dribs and drabbles.

Abilities come into play about now too. What separates great birders from good birders is aural capabilities. We just do not have the bird calls down as well as we should. The trees are leafed out right now so being able to distinguish calls is critical. Knowing the common birds is just as important as knowing the less common. Knowing the common species allows you to filter them out of that wonderful morning cacophony, to focus on the uncommon rhythms and patterns.

Then I need to get dead synapses to fire, allowing me to pull some familiar pattern out of long neglected memory banks. Carolina wren? Kentucky warbler? At one time I could distinguish between them. Lise has some music training behind her so I think it is easier for her. (Got a Grasshopper and Henslow’s Sparrow. Both are furtive grassland species, but have distinctive calls. – Lise)

Some calls I simply cannot get. Year after year I hear indigo bunting and bluebird calls but I just cannot commit them to memory. I can remember that the acceleration due the earth’s mass is 9.8 meters per second squared, there are 10 to the seventh seconds in a year,  and the rest mass of an electron is 0.511 MeV /c squared (million electron volts divided by the speed of light squared), but I can’t get those two calls into memory. I could probably pull Boltzmann’s constant out if I had to in a crunch but not an indigo bunting call. I think it’s because my brain is full. For something new to come in something old has to go out. The physics constants are pretty much burned into the brain so if something has to leave it tends to be things like marriage anniversary dates or children’s birthdays. Things my brain apparently believes are optional. So far I have been able to keep loved ones’ names intact. That’s the only thing keeping me alive.
                    
Barb has a neat audible aid called Bird Jams. It is an Ipod loaded with the Stokes’ birds calls. The program strips off the voice announcing the species so all you hear is the call. You can get a North American frog package too. Neat little gizmo that may become the family Christmas present this year.
                                
Next couple days will be busy without much chance for birding. Monday evening we are going to the National Honor Society induction for Molly and our bud Lindsay. Nothing my parents had to be concerned about. I guess that’s the difference between studying for Advanced Placement World History and watching Gilligan’s Island. You go girls. We are pretty damn proud of you both.

Today is a wet cool day so we opted to catch up on other things to free up some recreation time. The past couple days we made it out. Not too productive in terms of new species. Lise got her pheasant and we both got thrasher and magnolia warbler. I’m at 200 species and Lise is at 201.

Friday morning we went to a local park with the idea that we could knock off a couple early hours of birding and then Lise would take me on to work. The park was pretty empty when we arrived at ~7:00. One other couple birding in the parking lot. We did our thing and decided to leave about 9:00. By now the parking lot had more cars and others were arriving. I wanted to change into my office attire and figured I could do it in the front seat. So Lise drives over to the empty auxiliary lot. I take my muddy jeans off and throw them up on the dashboard. Now a car pulls in behind us. As I’m staring at Lise pant less and dumbfounded I hear beep, beep, beep, beep… Here comes the big green garbage truck with a yellow flasher on top. Could this get worse? Look, that flash of yellow and black. A magnolia warbler maybe? No, its, ahhhhh, A SCHOOL BUS pulling in beside us. “Don’t mind him children, its just a birder checking out his spotting scope.“

Sunday morning we got out birding with our friend Barb. This is after an overnight Friday-Saturday water polo tournament in Rockford followed by a great Saturday night dinner with Barb and Ellen lasting to about midnight. Nothing like birding on five hours sleep. Amazing what you can see and hear when you’re in a stupor.

We went down to Dansville State Game Area. It’s a heavily managed, really worked over area, designed for people to shoot things. Usually animals but you never know. Migrants are rolling in so the area was fairly productive bird wise. We got 12 new species there.

I almost stepped on a turkey sitting on her nest. Not much of a nest, just a bunch of eggs on the ground, but boy she stood her ground. I was only about two feet away when she flushed out in front of me. Now, that’s something that will knock you out of a stupor. My heart is still racing.

Turkey nest. Not much engineering but it seems to work.

We also had a very late junco. Usually these guys are up north by now. I guess this guy decided he likes the warmer climes a bit better. Maybe thinking of retiring down on the Gulf Coast? Not a new species but interesting to see something this late in the season.

Where did everyone go?

Right now we need to put some focus on getting the migrants coming through, headed for parts north. Most of the nesting species we have somewhere from weeks to months to get. It’s those that are only here for a couple days that are most important for the big year list. Which means we need to use whatever flexibility in our schedules water polo will allow us.

Lise and I both have 198 species, with a combined total of 202 species. Lise has a great egret, Anna’s hummingbird, ruffed grouse, and a hepatic tanager which I do not have. I have a Brewer’s sparrow, whip-poor-will, black vulture, and a ring-necked pheasant she does not have. The immediate goal is to make number 200 a really good species. Being a lifer and number 200 would be just peachy.

Another water polo tournament, this time an overnighter. In Rockford, just north of Grand Rapids. Not all is lost. In the hotel parking lot we got two new species for the year, Northern oriole and Tennessee warbler. While sitting in a strip mall Starbucks between games Lise spotted a bald eagle soaring overhead. Hundreds of other people around us and I doubt another person saw it.

The tournaments are kind of mind numbing. Lots of dead time, sitting around staring at walls thinking of all the productive things you aren’t doing. Kind of like sitting in an airport listening to endless messages advising you not to carry a bomb on board the plane for a terrorist you don’t know. Trapped in endless monotony. I guess it could be worse. At least I’m not in Cleveland.

The games are interesting to watch even though we still don’t understand the game. It appears you try to get the ball into the opponent’s net while inflicting the maximum possible damage to your opponents you can without getting caught. Getting the ball into the net seems to be secondary to inflicting the damage. Apparently you can hold your opponent underwater until they drown, bloat, and float to the top but, you can’t hit their wrist. Sometimes there are miscellaneous body parts floating around the pool. Rugby with a chance of drowning. I amuse myself trying to take pictures of the carnage.  Not real easy considering  moving targets, with a biggish lens, in bad light. Molly scored and this time I saw it. I even got a picture of it. My sister Lynn had an amusing water polo comment. The most important thing in water polo is keeping the horse’s head above water.

She shoots, she scores, the crowd goes wild. At least Lise and I did.

Miss Molly Mayhem, on them like ugly on a toad.

Mind if I push your head under water?

The Lady of the Lake extends Excalibur, the magical water polo ball that bestows ultimate power to the true water polo queen.

Hassan chop! (For those of you that are Bugs Bunny fans).

YOU SHALL NOT PASS!!!!!

Shall we dance?

The town of Rockford is kind of interesting. We found a neat place to eat, the Corner Tavern. Oldest brick building in Rockford. Built in 1873 it survived the great fire of 1883 and the Main Street fire of 1896. Apparently Rockford is quite the hot place. The food is good basic bar food but their real claim to fame is chili dogs. If you eat 12 of them, including buns and chili, within four hours, you get your name on the wall. And a reserved spot at the emergency room. One disgusting person, Tim Janus, ate 43.5 chili dogs in the four hour period. He broke the existing 43 hot dog record that was held by a woman. I think she played water polo on the East German Olympic team.

That’s about enough hot dogs in four hours to feed Bangladesh. I’ll bet ol’ Tim was fun to be around the next couple days. I wouldn’t want to light a match anywhere near him. He would go up like the Hindenburg. I wonder if he could eat 43.5 pounds of scrapple?

All was not lost for Cinco de Mayo. We came back to a great dinner and drinks with our friends Barb and Ellen. And today we did some great birding with Barb. But more on that when I get time to update lists.

This morning Lise and I took a little time for some peace and quiet to bird the Lansing River Trail. OK, so this isn’t exactly finding a quiet relaxing place to take a breather. But it is interesting.

The River Trail – Gateway to Lansing.

The trail parallels the Red Cedar River, possibly one of the most polluted rivers in Michigan. The river flows through campus. I had to dispose of an old fish collection in our lab on campus. I was inclined to just dump the jars of fish in formaldehyde into the river one night. Who would notice a few more dead fish floating downstream. My boss called campus safety instead.

The trail isn’t as bad as it may seem. Once you get away from the entrance there are some nice river flood plain areas. I use it to commute home on bicycle from downtown Lansing. There was a red-tailed hawk hanging around. We had a flock of at least 50 yellow-rumped warblers flitting around us. Probably more. Yellow-rumps are rather gregarious and I’ve seen small flocks before, but nothing like this. We also got two new species for the year; warbling vireo and palm warbler. (also chimney swift and catbird – Lise)

Urban raptors.

Yellow -rumped warbler – A.K.A. butter butt.

One of the interesting aspects of birding the River Trail is that it borders Potter Park Zoo. So while we are listening to warbling vireos and blue winged warblers we suddenly hear the pterodactyls from the Johnny Quest cartoon. Now I know they’re peacocks, but as a kid I was sure that’s what pterodactyls sounded like. The producers of Johnny Quest wouldn’t have lied to me would they? Must be that the pterodactyls evolved into peacocks.

You can see some strange sights too. Like following a flying bird in the binos and suddenly a Bactrian camel comes into view. Too weird.

Strange sights on the River Trail.

We saw another strange sight too. Some odd mutation of goose. It looked something like a Canada goose but had different coloration and orange legs. Sometimes it was by itself, but other times it paired up with a Canada goose to fight with other Canadian geese.

Goose mulatto?

So is this a goose mulatto, the outcome of some strange pairing between a Canada goose and a zoo resident? Maybe it came from too much time in Red Cedar water. Another intriguing possibility is the mallard preening nearby. Those orange legs had to come from somewhere. Mom seemed to be tending the kids but Dad had nothing else to do but look good. Did we have some kind of a fowl foul that produced a foul fowl?

The culprit? Looks suspicious to me.

Someone is minding the household.