First in Flight

   There was a parental demonstration of the art of flying this morning on our driveway. A pair of adult Northern Mockingbirds (Mimus polyglottos) were teaching a fledgling (just out of the nest) how to fly. It was noisy.

   Here is the little pilot, on the runway. He gets a signal from the tower and he's ready to go. He throws back his muffler and fixes his goggles. Then he slowly... achingly slow... lifts his wings, imitating his parents. The mother bird swooped down to encourage her charge. Then he tried again.

   It never amounted to "flight" as one would consider "flight". The little bird scooted into the grass and hid under a bush. It was too cute.

Robert

Photos courtesy of bshelton

No Wonder

   I had mentioned hobbling down forest paths and using a cane to climb on top of rock formations during our recent birding vacation to the beautiful Upper Peninsula of Michigan. I even remember soothing my aching foot in the cold waters of Lake Superior. Berry was always sympathetic.

   Because it was slow to heal, I had my sprained ankle ex-rayed and it turned out that, when I crunched down on it in Charlotte, NC. I broke the "fibula" bone. The tip of the long bone on the outside of my left foot snapped off.

   If you know anything about bones, here is the ex-ray. Be assured. I am fine. I had walked on it since May 1 to June 13. That couldn't have been good for it, but birding superceded physical pain. The foot is being treated, now that I know that it actually was broken.

Broken Foot

Robert

Photos courtesy of dreverson

We Made it Home Safely

   The Upper Peninsula of Michigan is great. And late-May and early-June is a wonderful time to bird there. One thing we noticed is the natural beauty. There is a plethora of deer on the peninsula. There really are a lot of deer in Yooper Country.

A Deer Staring at Us

   Another thing we noticed is the real effect on the living standard of people of the economic problems. In the hinterlands there we saw rows of houses for sale. Berry saw lots of empty properties for sale, but remember, the houses had actual people in them.

Michigan For Sale

   But what we will remember the most is the amazing diversity of the natural landscape in the Upper Peninsula !

Beaver Dam

Stunning U.P. Shoreline

   This is our Trip List for our birding vacation in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. "Life Birds" will be in red. Our entire "Life List" is on the right side of this page.

YOOPER TRIP LIST

• Ring Billed Gull
• Yellow Shafted Northern Flicker
• American Robin
• European Starling
• Turkey Vulture
• Rock Dove
• Double Crested Cormorant
• Red Breasted Merganser
• Hooded Warbler
• Mallard
• American Crow
• American Redstart
• Black and White Warbler
• Black Billed Cuckoo
• Pine Warbler
• Hooded Warbler
• Canada Goose
• Great Blue Heron
• Ruby Throated Hummingbird
• Olive Sided Flycatcher
• American Kestrel
• White Throated Sparrow
• Chipping Sparrow
• Red Winged Blackbird
• Northern Parula
• American Tree Sparrow
• Killdeer
• Blue Jay
• Black Capped Chickadee
• Yellow Rumped Warbler
• Eastern Kingbird
• Lesser Scaup
• Bald Eagle
• Common Raven
• Ruffed Grouse
• Sandhill Crane
• Green Winged Teal
• Song Sparrow
• Mourning Dove
• Common Redpoll
• Iceland Gull
• Bufflehead
• Common Loon
• Barn Swallow
• Ladder Backed Woodpecker
• Gyrfalcon
• Common Merganser
• Hermit Thrush
• Red Tailed Hawk
• Lapland Longspur
• Pied Billed Grebe
• Least Flycatcher
• Black Throated Green Warbler
• Eastern Wood Pewee
• Cerulean Warbler
• Boat Tailed Grackle
• Yellow Warbler
• Brown Headed Cowbird
• American White Pelican
• Purple Martin
• Cedar Waxwing
• Gray Catbird
• Ring Necked Pheasant
• Loggerhead Shrike
• Bank Swallow
• Great Egret
• Tree Swallow
• Osprey
• Downy Woodpecker
• Trumpeter Swan
• Rough Legged Hawk
• Wood Duck
• Pileated Woodpecker
• Bobolink
• Dickcissel
• Ring necked Duck
• Hairy Woodpecker
• Merlin
• Juvenile Cooper's Hawk
• Caspian Tern
• Forster's Tern
• Eastern Meadowlark
• White Crowned Sparrow
• Willow Flycatcher
• Ovenbird
• And, occupying another branch of the taxonomic tree, Rabbits, lots of Deer, Beaver, Muskrat, Field Mice, even more Deer, Chipmunk, Box Turtle, Snapping Turtle, did I say Deer and a Black Squirrel...

   And after Nancy took us home from the airport, we went to the kennel and picked up Cosmo. What a terrific birding vacation !

Cosmo

   If you are interested in following our adventures, look at the bottom of this page for the link to our Icelandic Birding Trip. I still have not finished the Mexican Page, so it is not up yet.

Robert

Photos courtesy of bshelton and rfowler

Laughing Whitefish Falls

   We visited Levassure Lake which the wildlife authorities had drained. Yummy birding. We spotted a lovely Willow Flycatcher (Empidonax traillii), another of those difficult-to-identify empidonax crowd. While we were watching, the flycatcher chased away a small Ruby Throated Hummingbird (Archilochus colubris) from its limb.

Willow Flycatcher

   We ate lunch at the swank Brownstone Inn. It had been a hotel but was now only a restaurant. We entered the Hiawatha National Forest again to look for Au Train Lake. They have jet black squirrels there. At the lake we saw a Yellow Bellied Flycatcher (Empidonax flaviventris)

Yellow Bellied Flycatcher

   Thus begin our Adventures of the Laughing Whitefish Falls. First we spot a Red Breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis) climbing down a tree head first. Then we finally got our first visual sighting of the Eastern Wood Pewee (Contopus virens) which we had heard a thousand times before. He is a non-descript looking bird, but has a droopy, plaintive call. Note here that we saw a Red Car driving down the service path parallel to our path across the clearing. This will be important later.

Eastern Wood Pewee

   We made it down to the Laughing Whitefish Falls and they were worth the mile long hike. There is an observation platform and stairs to the bottom. Water cascades beautifully down to a slide of slippery wet rocks. Very well done. Then we started walking back out. Berry and I stopped to debate the identity of a loud Ovenbird (Seiurus aurocapillus). This bird creates a bower of dry leaves to attract a mate. We easily memorized its "thwack-thwack-thwack-thwack" call. Berry counted eight thwacks in a row. Then, an elderly man walked up the path toward us. He seemed nice, but claimed that he and his friend were stuck at the bottom of the falls. He seemed a little confused.

Ovenbird

   We pointed out to the man that he and his friend could drive back up the service path they had just come down. He claimed that it was muddy, etc. and that they "couldn't". Then we see his friend driving up the narrow walking path toward us. We said we'd go for help. Two tourists from Illinois stayed with them, while we walked to the top of the hill and informed people in a nearby house, who said they would help. Berry got a sense of responsibility due to the man's being somewhat addled, so I called the Michigan State Police, who said they would go and investigate.

Laughing Whitefish Falls

   What a way to end a great vacation. The police called me back to get my full story. Berry and I are packing to leave. The Yoopers have a great place to inhabit. I think it's a great place to visit.

Robert

photos courtesy of bshelton, ajordan and wikipedia

Whitefish Point

   From the "Soo" (Sault Sainte Marie) we drove west along the coast of Lake Superior, darting in and out of several bays. We saw lots of birds. The most unusual were the Red Breasted Nuthatch (Sitta canadensis). This acrobat clings upside down while climbing down the side of the trunk of a tree.

Red Breasted Nuthatcher

   The Least Flycatcher (Empidonax minimus) was next. We noticed it because the the sharp "twack" sound of its call. Sibley's Field Guide characterizes the call as "pwit" but it is attention-getting. This is a difficult bird to spot visually because of its dark gray back and light gray chest. It is all but inconspicuous high in the forest canapy. We heard it, then followed it when it flew from tree to tree. Then we got the binoculars on it. Then come the difficulties identifying it, by differentiating it from every other gray inconspicuous flycatcher. You can see the challenge there.

Least Flycatcher

   We took a side trip through the Hiawatha National Forest. We saw evidence of extensive logging operations inside the forest. The massive trucks created ruts in the dirt roads. Someone from work called me when I was deep in the forest and my cellphone dropped the call. We were trying to reach a small lake deep inside the forest. This was so deep where the trees were so large they blotted out the sun. This made the roads in the shadows retain the dampness from the previous week's rain. And, you can see this coming. The deep ruts made by the trucks became soft if not downright muddy. Our small vehicle bottomed out several times. We had to give up. We ate lunch in Paradise, Michigan.

   I took a photograph of Iceland Gulls (Larus glaucoides) at a port on Lake Superior. They are handsome birds, but they cannot be identified in our photo. Iceland Gulls are medium sized but stocky, with a rounded head. We remember them from our vacation there. They slip down to the Great Lakes from Greenland.

   At the end of the day we stopped at the Tahquamenon Waterfalls. The walk to the falls was not long. And for this Robert was grateful.

Tahquamenon Waterfalls

   There were "smoke jumpers" in the area. Most of the forest fire is under control at this point. They had aircraft dropping water on the blaze. We did not have any problems.

Wildfire in Progress

Fire Fighting Vehicles

Robert

photos courtesy of bshelton and wikipedia

Birding Lake Huron

   We began our day poking into the Green Island rookery with our scope. The gulls were still there, but they were not swirling in clouds as they had been the night before. We end up debating the significance of the "swarming" behavior without coming to any conclusions. Driving east on the highway down the coast of Lake Huron, we went in and out of several bays, inlets and boat ramps. My idea is that birds don't know where the boundaries to those national wildlife refuges are.

   Caspian Terns (Sterna caspia) are the largest of the terns in North America. I like terns because they are acrobatic, easily identifiable and have a generally clean look. Down next to it plopped a tiny tern, Forster's Tern (Sterna forsteri), our smallest tern. The difference in size made the situation crystal clear.

Caspian Tern

   There was a male Hairy Woodpecker (Picoides villosus) on the side of a tree at Brullee Point. There we also saw several Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) along the road. We have seen plenty of "Cedar" waxwings during our birding trips and at home on our grapevines; we need a "Bohemian Waxwing" (Bombycilla garrulus) for our "Life List" so there was a serious discussion of possibilities and probablities. We finally let go of the waxwing issue and drove on.

   An old man walking down the road with binoculars said he had lived there since 57. He talked about a moose that he had seen and a bear that had gone on his porch to eat bird seed. Berry was amazed that Tree Swallows (Tachycineta bicolor) perch on things from time to time. At the causeway over to the town of Hessell, we watched two beautiful blue-gray Merlins (Falco columbarius) darting left and right at high speed over the reeds. We were hypnotized and watched them for several minutes. Their swept-back wings are sharpened at the end.

Merlin

   For lunch we ate at a cafe in De Tour Village that only took cash. We are in the backwoods of the Upper Peninsula, after all. After lunch we saw a sleepy Cooper's Hawk (Accipiter cooperii) on a wire just north of that town. One of the best birds we saw was the Northern Harrier (Circus cyaneus). This bird "courses" low and slow over a field, looking for mice or bugs and pouncing down on them from six feet. It is dramatic to watch, because anything can happen in an instant. The biggest bird we saw was an olive green US military helicopter working for Border Control along the middle of the Saint Mary's River, between Michigan and Ontario, Canada. Right where Al Qaida will infiltrate.

Boarder Control Helicopter

   We found the home base for the Sandhill Crane (Grus canadensis) community in Michigan. There were 25 at one point. I lost count. From there we came north toward Sault Sainte Marie (Saint Mary's Rapids in French). In English the locals call it "The Soo". You can see Canadians piddling around on the other bank of the Saint Mary's River, Eh.

Robert

photos courtesy of kkarlson and wikipedia

Family Day at Seney

   We visited the Seney National Wildlife Refuge in Schoolcraft County, Michigan. This is a great wildlife refuge. They have a car tour of the ten or twelve ponds that make up this refuge. Birds upon birds. First we saw two graceful Sandhill Cranes (Grus canadensis) waltzing in an open field. These are large birds, more than a meter tall, making them easy to see. Here is our favorite picture of them.

Sandhill Cranes at Seney National Wildlife Refuge

   At Kennedy Lake, we were watching something across a stretch of water with our spotting scope. Then we noticed a Hooded Warbler (Wilsonia Citrina) sitting in a bush, right next to us. On a fence post along the road a female Dickcissel (Spiza americana) was pitching woo loudly to another bird of her feather. And next to her, a male Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) dressed in his courtship display garments. I think he looks like a judge, with black robe, chalky wig and silver tail, every bit the judge.

Judge Bobolink

   Here begins a list of families, where we saw parents and offspring together. We saw a male, female and two nestling Ospreys (Pandion haliaetus) on their nest. We saw male, female and one fledgling Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator). We saw a male and female Common Loon (Gavia immer) and, riding on the back of the mother Loon was one baby Loon. We saw lots of Canada Geese (Branta canadensis) with their offspring, too.

   There was fire damage around one of the ponds. This was from a forest fire caused by lightening that was actually much more serious elsewhere. We did see singed pine trees and scorched earth where the worst of it was. Yet, there was grass growing up through the ashes. And the upper branches of the trees were bright green and unharmed.

Forest Fire inside Seney

   We are staying in Saint Ignace, Michigan tonight. After dinner, we drove down a dirt road and found by accident an enormous rookery called Green Island. It is an island right next to the Mackinaw Straits Bridge where thousands of birds go to roost for the night. Ring Billed Gulls (Larus delawarenis), Trumpeter Swans (Cugnus buccinator), Red Breasted Mergansers (Mergus serrator), Ring Necked Ducks (Aythya collaris), you name it. Right before dark, they take to the air in unison, flying around in a swarming movement. This is some preparation to land and get settled for the night. It may be a flocking procedure, attracting other birds to join them. An amazing sight ! We are going back there early in the morning (6:30am) to observe them again.

Robert

photos courtesy of bshelton and wikipedia

Bogs in Green Bay

   We poked around Green Bay, Wisconsin today. The city and state taxes for hotel rooms in Wisconsin are exorbitant. Located in Green Bay is the Bird City Sanctuary which is a large bog next to Lake Michigan. Here we saw our first Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) of the birding trip. We also saw a Great Egret (Ardea alba). These are both large birds, standing about three feet tall. We talked to a delightful Ranger there, who wrote out directions to the other two bog like places in Green Bay. It was in this first bog that we took a photograph of a huge Muskrat in the water. He looks cute.

   Berry started humming the song, "Muskrat Love". Then we saw another Muskrat in the Ken Euer Wildlife Refuge. They look like giant balls of fur in the swamp, but they have long rat tails. At that place we got a real good look at a blue-green winged Tree Swallow (Tachycineta bicolor) perched and perfectly still. These birds are usually frenetic with movement. They dart and dash across the sky, and it is difficult to get a bead on them. In another part of the same path, a small male Downy Woodpecker (Picoides pubescens) was preening his feathers endlessly in the sun. We see Downies at the suet in our backyard.

Tree Swallow

   Following the directions given to us by the Ranger, we next went to Bay Beach Wildlife Sanctuary. This facility is like a zoo for birds, including an animal hospital for injured birds. Here we saw a Trumpeter Swan (Cygnus buccinator) sleeping in the sun. We also saw an Osprey (Pandion haliaetus) flying majestically overhead across the whole park.

Osprey

   After a very fun-filled morning of birding Green Bay, Wisconsin, we ate a nice lunch at the train station and headed back up the coast of Lake Michigan into the Upper Peninsula of Michigan.

LINGUISTIC NOTE: Informants tell us the correct pronunciation of the Michigan dish, "pastie" is "pass-tee" with a short a sound. It rhymes with the word, "nasty". Say "pass-tee", not "paste-ee", with a sharp yankee accent.

Robert

photos courtesy of wikipedia

Lighthouses on the Coasts of Lakes Superior and Michigan

Down to Green Bay, Wisconsin

   It was raining and we were looking for coffee, a small cafe serving good coffee with a place to sit and relax. In the small town of Escanaba, Michigan, that became difficult. We gave up the search and drove down the coast of Lake Michigan. This is the other side of the Upper Peninsula. Check your map. It is Lake Michigan.

   We were enjoying the handsome Cedar Waxwings (Bombycilla cedrorum) nibbling berries under a cedar tree, when suddenly and all at once, a beautiful male Ring Necked Pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) ambled into view. What a special sight in the drizzling rain. A white ring around the neck, a red hat, and long elegant tail, may make this the bird of the trip.

   Berry disagrees. The Ruffed Grouse with its feather boa courtship display was impressive indeed. This is her photograph of the pheasant, but part of its head is behind a fence.

Ring Necked Pheasant

   There are rules for when you are birding. Not intrusive "Rules" from some far-flung bureaucrat, but hard and fast rules which we abide.

• Rule 1. Do not interfere in the daily lives of birds. We want to observe them, but we don't chase them to distraction. We never disturb a nest. We leave the area if our presence is causing distress to the birds.
• Rule 2. Do not trespass. It is difficult to be following a bird, then stop immediately at the property line of a resident. Yet, it is important to be good citizens. There is plenty of publicly accessible land, roads, beaches, and harbors available to us, so that, the desire to trespass while birding is really just a failure of the imagination.
• Rule 3. Do not litter. This may seem obvious, yet we actually see a great deal of trash. We keep a large green garbage bag in the car and pick up the odd tin can or plastic bottle.

   Besides these hard and fast "rules", there are what are more guidelines than rules. These are things that you should do, but they are not rules.

• Guideline 1. Do not feed the birds. Do not put seeds out to attract birds. Don't tease the birds with french fries. This is unethical behavior. By extension, in the wild we do not play recordings of bird sounds to lure other birds of that species. These are all unethical in birding.
• Guideline 2. Do not talk loudly while birding. So many times we have been staring at a bird through the binoculars and another bird will come into view. The excitement is hard to rein in. If you had been chatting loudly, or clanging a pie plate with a metal spoon, birds may flee the area.
• Guideline 3. Handle your equipment sharply. The slamming of car doors is a game changer as far as birding. Our spotting scope has a tripod, three long metal legs which need to be adjusted with noisy clips. Binoculars and camera and walking stick bump into anything and everything while you are getting in and out of the car.

   At the Fishing Museum along the coast of Lake Michigan, the nice docents let us bird their grounds where we found a Gray Catbird (Dumetella carolinensis) hiding in the undergrowth. We noticed the catbird, because we heard it. The call of this bird sounds like the "meow" of a small kitten.

   At the North Bay Slough, we caught sight of a Yellow Warbler (Dendroica petechia) on its nest, feeding its nestlings. Bright yellow all over, with red stripes on the belly. Very difficult to see because of its coloring. This bird was confident enough that it built its nest next to a path.

Yellow Warbler

   We see a lot more birds than we mention here on the blog. There will be a "Trip List" at the end of our vacation, with all the birds we saw.

Crop Circles in the Reeds

   Are crop circles like these the result of UFOs hovering close to the reeds, or the result of downward flowing micro-bursts of wind off Lake Michigan?

Robert

photos courtesy of bshelton, wikipedia and rfowler

Travel Day

   We did not do a lot of birding today. Today was a travel day. We went from Ironwood, Michigan through Ottawa National Forest to the southeast corner of the Upper Peninsula. This will set up further birding.

   We saw a huge Pileated Woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus) flying across the road. We saw a Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus) munching on the carcass of a deer. We saw several English Sparrows (Passer domesticus) dusting themselves in a pile of dust here in Iron Mountain, Michigan.

Berry will present some photographs we have taken along the way. Hope you enjoy them.

Robert

This is Lake Superior as seen across Marquette Bay. It was Memorial Day and was raining and rather cold.

We saw this Ring Billed Gull at the breakwater at Presque Isle Bay. The word 'presque' is a French word meaning "almost, or not quite"... So Presque Isle is almost, but not quite an island.

Mr. and Mrs. Common Merganser were spotted relaxing in the sun as we approached a Lighthouse. On the walk across the breakwater, I thought Robert was going to fall into the icy waters of Lake Superior, trying to rescue his sunglasses that had fallen off.

How many birds can I see if I cannot "stop, stand, or park"?

I am not normally a morning person, but Canyon Falls was beautiful, even at the unreasonable hour of 8:00am.

I took this picture of a woodpecker hole because Robert was walking very slowly and I got bored.

This was the 0.5 mile path to the summit of Porcupine Mountain. It was steep, so this time both Robert and I were walking very slowly.

We have seen a lot of deer. Fortunately for them, neither of us is a hunter. I hope in the coming week that we will see a moose and/or a bear in addition to lots more birds.

Berry

photos courtesy of bshelton