Fenner Nature Center

All winter long I've been receiving eBird emails listing species I have not reported seeing in Michigan. (If you are a birder and you don't participate in eBird, you should.) Fenner Nature Center in Lansing came up over and over again. One of the reasons is a Townsend's solitaire had been hanging out at the feeders there most of the winter. A bird native to the Western U.S., this bird was apparently injured, missing a leg. No idea if that contributed in some way to it's being so far from home. At any rate we had wanted to get out there to see it (a nice life list addition) but never made it.

As the weather has warmed up and spring had exploded in Southeast Michigan, Lori and I have made more of an effort to get away from our computers and drawing tables and get outside. I decided Fenner sounded like a good place to go to explore something new.

I am somewhat wary of nature centers. My experience is the facilities are often old, out-dated and filled with mildewy taxidermy that looks like it came out of great-grandpa's attic. The grounds are usually not much better, little more than overgrown city parks--the "nature" part being that they are not maintained like a park, but left to "grow wild".

Unfortunately, Fenner is exactly that. At 134 acres, it's small, but manages to cram a lot of diverse habitat in to that space. There are several ponds, second or third (or fourth?) growth forest and a meadow. But none of it is quality habitat. The woods were filled with garlic mustard, the extent of which I have never seen before, except in photographs showing severe infestations. The trees are choked by Oriental bittersweet, another nasty invasive, and in the meadow I saw only two native plants. In their defense these places are usually underfunded, and if they don't have a strong volunteer group they are limited in what maintenance and restoration work they can do.

That said, there were some interesting birds on the property, so we did our best to overlook the shortcomings of the place and focus on the wildlife. At the nature center building we checked out the dry-erase board listing recent wildlife sitings and saw a pair of wood ducks had been seen on the Woodland Pond, so we headed back that way. I have never gotten a shot of a male in breeding plumage, and I would love to do a wood duck piece.

As we walked around the pond to the far observation deck the ducks flew in and landed on the water. Bad timing, as it turned out, since they are skittish birds and the slightest movement sends them into a panic. I got a few images of the male, which I guess I can at least use for composition, but would need other images for detail.

Male wood duck. I think they are one of the prettiest birds out there.

We managed to make our way to a nearby bench without scaring them, but they had moved to the far side of the pond behind some grasses and deadfall, which made them hard to see.

Female wood duck on some dry grass. The pond held a nest box but we didn't see them go near it.

We sat on the bench for a while, then I moved over to the observation deck. I hoped I could avoid scaring them but I had hardly walked around the corner before they flew away. I sat and watched an Eastern phoebe instead, who may have been building a nest under the deck.

Eastern phoebe. Looks like it might have a bit of spider web in its beak.

We have a very small, short window to watch for migrating warblers in the tree tops before the trees leaf out, so we spent a lot of time scanning the canopy. I spotted this blackburnian warbler when I was watching a pair of Northern cardinals. I only got a few shots of this gorgeous bird, which, believe it or not, are better than the ones I had before!

Male blackburnian warbler. I had one heck of a stiff neck by the end of the day.

Lori spotted three deer who bedded down in a patch of garlic mustard under a honeysuckle, another invasive plant. With the deer around any native vegetation doesn't stand a chance.

Very un-afraid white-tailed deer.

The highlight of the day came in the meadow, where we saw lots of tree swallows. These birds get a bad rap for competing with bluebird for nest boxes, but in reality their numbers are about the same, and I suspect tree swallows, who feed on the wing, eat more of the insects that pester us than bluebirds do.

A pair had staked a claim to a nest box, but it seems the second nest box was put too close to the first (only about 20 feet away) and every time another swallow flew by one of this pair would fly over to the other box, then back again. Going to be hard to be a successful breeding pair when you're guarding two boxes.

Tree swallows. They were so intent on guarding this box that I was able to walk out there and sit very close.

I find them to be striking birds.

Keeping an eye to the sky.

Here one of the birds has gone to the other nest box.

The pair were constantly on the move, taking to the air and returning over and over again.

On the way back to the car we passed another pond, where this painted turtle was hauling itself out of the water and into the warm sun. I hear ya, buddy--we are all craving that sunshine!

Finishing Shiawassee

Flush with the thrill of the chickadee encounter, we moved on down the trail, coming to a tangle of downed trees and grape vine, and my keen eye (*snicker*) spotted some movement among the vines--a brown creeper!!



I have only seen one on two occasions, first on a walk in Huron Hills Metropark just down the road from my house, and once this past winter in the trees next to my studio. That time I had been out filling up feeders and again caught movement on a tree trunk about 15 feet away. I froze instantly and saw a creeper working its way down the rotting wood of a dead slippery elm. Within moments it flew closer, landing on a black cherry not four feet in front of me. I watched it for a minute or so before it flew away, then I ran to the house to tell the girls.

They can be very difficult to see thanks to their camouflage coloring and markings. I know this one isn't particularly clear, but you can imagine how on a rough-barked tree this bird would virtually disappear.



Eventually the path left the riverbank and turned back into the woods. It occurred to me after a bit that we were walking on a raised bed, not unlike the dikes in Florida in the Maritime Hammock Sanctuary. I looked along both sides of the trail and could see in places that it had probably been dredged at some point, although I imagine the area had been previously swampy, like in this photo.


Then Lisa picked up a funny looking rock and we gathered round to examine it. Huh. Looks a bit like coal. Oh hey, that's right, I remember reading that the area had been mined for coal decades ago! What we were walking on was probably an old rail bed that was used to get the coal to a barge waiting on the river.



This deer and its partner where checking us out from across the swamp. A bit rough looking, I assume it's shedding its winter coat.



I was disappointed at the number and density of invasive plants in this wildlife "refuge"--it was thick with barberry, glossy buckthorn and garlic mustard to name a few. But in spite of that we came across a decent variety of wildflowers, including the densest concentration of wild ginger any of us has ever seen.




Lots of wild geranium...


and Jack-in-the-pulpit too.



Nearing the end of the trail we spotted this eastern phoebe near a marsh, watching us closely.



Finally, as we neared the parking lot, we came to a small flock of cedar waxwings feasting in...well, I'm not sure what this is. It could be glossy buckthorn--the berries they were eating had to be from last year as no plants had produced yet. This of course is how this plant gets spread all over the place--birds eat the berries and then poop out the seeds. Sigh.



Here is a shot of the backside of a waxwing. Shows off the yellow tips on the tail and the red adornments on the ends of some of the wing feathers--breeding plumage that will be lost when the birds moult in the fall.



We got back to the RV--remember the RV?--and were famished, not having packed any snacks and too little water. Our hikes always take longer than we think they ought to considering the distance we travel, and this was a warmer day than most we'd had up to this point in late April. We sat and had lunch then headed on home.

A week or so later I visited their website, http://www.fws.gov/midwest/shiawassee/, and found that they have a list of bird sightings that is just amazing. Again, we were there about a week too early to really see a huge variety of birds, and I would guess that many of the sightings were near the marsh, not the river and woods. Oh well, someday we'll figure out how to plan our travel times better!

Spring Hike

We have been blessed with some fantastic weather the past week or so. Highs in the 60's and 70's, which is 10 to 20 degrees above normal. The world has burst into life and so have I, finding any odd job I can as an excuse to stay outside. Prune trees? Sure! Caulk the RV? No problem! Scoop dog poop? Can't wait!!

The girls had a better idea this past Sunday and proposed a hike. We didn't plan this real well as we left the house around 11am without eating lunch first and without packing snacks, so we were whupped by the time we got home. Even though the trail we took is only about 2--2 1/2 miles long it took us nearly three hours. Hiking with a bunch of artist/naturalists is not a good way to get an aerobic workout, but it's awesome if you like to stop every 50 feet and watch a bird or turn over logs or inspect pond life.

Many of the trees, like this maple (probably a red maple) were in full bloom.



Not to be outdone, willows in the marsh were showing off their blossoms.



We often find ourselves off the trail, following a deer path to see where it leads (and to look for shed antlers). That often leads to finds like this ant hill, which was just teaming with activity. The mound was nearly four feet across, and it looked like the ground was moving there were so many ants crawling around.



One of my favorite things about hiking this time of year is the vernal pond. Full of frog and insect life, the creatures that live here have to act fast, procreating and developing before the heat of summer dries up this seasonal habitat.



In and around these areas, the skunk cabbage thrives. Fascinating plant, this. It is able to create its own heat and so will begin to grow before the snow melts and the ground thaws. The flower part is the shiny red bit (called the spadix), with the leaves growing up around it.


Housed within the spadix is the spathe, the part of the plant that gets pollinated. Botanists think that the heat produced by the skunk cabbage is what results in it smell (not unlike rotting flesh) which attracts flies and other insects who are the pollinators of this plant. I am pretty sure that if I smelled like rotting flesh, no one would want to pollinate me. Yeesh!



While we were examining the plant life, Lori spotted a bird hoping about in the trees near the water. Ah, an eastern phoebe, apparently building a nest under the root ball of a large toppled tree nearby. We watched as he flew in and out of this sheltered spot.



Handsome fellow, watching us as closely as we watched him, flicking his tail up and down.




Near the end of our hike we spotted a small bird in the underbrush. Not until we got home and looked at the photos did we know it was a fox sparrow, well camouflaged in the shrubbery.



On the drive home we spotted a cluster of small yellow flowers along the road. I of course had to hop out and take some pictures. This is colt's foot, not a native plant but one brought from Europe and used for medicinal purposes. Pretty, though, and apparently not invasive, and certainly one of the first flowers I've seen so far this spring.



Our heat wave is over, rain has moved in and the temperature is dropping as I write this--and it's 10 am. But that's OK with me--too warm and spring moves too fast, and too much of life moves too fast as it is. I'm all for slowing things down.