Artwork--White-breasted Nuthatch

After a spectacular show in Indianapolis I have been working my tail off to get some new pieces done. I am hoping for two before my show this weekend in East Lansing, but I may not get there. We'll see.

I have gobs and oodles of images of birds--some from my backyard, some from up north, many from Florida. It is difficult to choose which ones to do first. I picked the white-breasted nuthatch because it's one of my favorites and because I thought I could do this particular piece fairly quickly. I have others of this bird I want to do but they'll have to wait until I am not so crunched for time!

Uneasy Neighbors

As the trail at the Shiawassee NRW finally reached the Titabawassee River we saw swallows swooping and swerving over the water. Down along the river bank path we came across some bluebird boxes, complete with bluebirds.



Upon the neighboring box sat a tree swallow.



Tree swallows are known for taking over bluebird boxes, and, along with starlings and house sparrows, have earned a bad reputation for doing so. I never really understood this, as tree swallows are a native like the bluebird, (unlike the house sparrow and starling, both of which came from Europe), and seem to me to be equally deserving of nesting sites.

These two are checking the place out.


I have seen other birds, cardinals for instance, that will feed each other I would guess as part of a mating ritual. I have only seen the male feeding the female, as if to say, "look at what a good father I can be!" as it is after all the female who chooses with whom to mate. At first I thought that is what was going on here, but now that I look more closely at these photos it looks like a male above and the female below, so I don't really know what is going on here. Perhaps they aren't even mates.








I was curious about this nesting competition with bluebirds and the anger some people feel towards the three swallows, so I did a little research about it. Turns out there are plenty of others who don't quite understand the vitriol some reserve for the tree swallow, and feel it is ill placed. Bluebird numbers are quite healthy, and yes it is thanks in part to the folks who put up bluebird boxes all over the Eastern US. But historically (and we're talking pre-European settlers) much of the east was not great habitat for the bluebird. It was densely forested, and the bluebird needs open land in order to hunt for it's prey. Numbers soared in the 1800's as we cleared the land for farms, but then fell thanks to the introduction of the house sparrow and the starling. Numbers declined further with the use of pesticides that killed off the bluebird's main food source.

But now, estimates put bluebird numbers on par with tree swallows. After watching the swallows scooping up bugs over the river I would be more than happy to have them nesting in boxes at my house! However, as one who is trying in vain to establish native vegetation on my property only to have it munched down to the ground by white-tail deer, I understand the frustration one can feel when they have a certain goal in mind but are thwarted again and again by Nature, who generally has a plan all its own--or no plan at all.

But don't worry too much about the bluebirds. They can fend for themselves.

As promised I have a chicken update for you. It is really astonishing how quickly they grow, and how much they change in appearance from chick to adult. I will have to post some before and after pics once they get all of their feathers in.

Here's Lucy,



Marianne,


Ginger,


and Ethel.




Marianne and Lucy play tug-o-war over a worm Lori dug out of the garden.



The girls love the sun and the warm brick outside the back door. The sun, along with dust baths, helps keep mites and parasites at bay. They lay down on one side and lift the opposite wing up to get the sun underneath. It's amazing to me that they know to do these things without an adult chicken around to teach them. It is purely instinct.



Mmmm, nap time.



Next: back to Shiawassee

Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge

Leaving the ick of Bay City behind us, we drove back south to the city of Saginaw. We were a bit perplexed as we drove through town, wondering where on earth one would hide a wildlife refuge in all of this concrete. After navigating the city streets and a major detour we finally pulled into the parking lot for the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge. We had opted for the Woodland trail, a four mile loop that we figured we would walk part of and then walk back. When we got there we looked at their trail maps and found several smaller loops were available and decided to take a two mile loop that went along the Tittabawasee River for a spell.

Also on the message board was an announcement warning people not to eat the following: Deer liver, any part of a wild turkey, several fish including catfish and white bass, and waterfowl. Apparently the Tittabawassee River has been contaminated with dioxin. Nice. We could have called this our Toxic Vacation! We tried our best to put the specter of contamination out of our minds and enjoy the scenery.

Shortly after striking out we came to a bridge crossing Bullhead Creek, (another fish on the "Don't Eat" list).

The day was fair even though it lacked sunshine. The turtles were quite appreciative of the heat. Here a painted turtle warms its bones.

There were piles of turtles on nearly every branch, log and rock.

Ah, the unmistakable snapping turtle, with its phallic head. According to Wikipedia a basking snapper is a rare sight--lucky me. Snappers are mean, aggressive and agile, as anyone who has tried to move one out of the road knows--the ungrateful sot--and they smell like dead things. This one has quite an impressive crop of algae growing on its back. They are best left alone--they eat baby ducks, fer cryin' out loud. 'Nuff said.

As we moved on down the trail we came across this fungus. I don't know my fungus, but this one was really interesting. Anyone want to school me here?

We couldn't go 50 feet, it seemed, without something to look at. This comma butterfly landed in the path right in front of me. My books tell me this butterfly is typically shy, so I guess another fairly rare sight.

Not a minute later this red admiral landed in front of me. Both these butterflies were only about 1 1/2 inches long. These butterflies are apparently more gregarious. I fished one out of the laundry hamper this morning, a stow-away on a shirt hung on the clothes line Sunday. I let it out the front door.

Not too far from the creek we found several crayfish burrows. Yes, they really live down there. They dig down in the mud to get to the water table, bringing up pellets of mud that make up the chimney. Snakes will some times take up residence in dried out crayfish burrows so I wouldn't stick my finger down one.

The girls had gone on ahead while I was chasing butterflies. After a bit I noticed they had stopped and were peering into a hole in a tree trunk. I came over slowly and peeked over Lisa's shoulder. I thought at first I was looking at an Eastern screech owl, but then I noticed an ear and fuzzy tail--a gray squirrel, possibly on a next of youngin's. Kind of a risky place to build a nest, next to the trail at eye level, but perhaps all the prime spots were already taken. Anyone got a peanut?

Next: chicken update

Saginaw Bay

I know, I said I'd write next about the Anderson Trail, but when I looked through the photos, well, there aren't many. The woods were really uninteresting. There had been a recent controlled burn in part of it, and the rest had been burned in the recent past. I don't know what the condition of these woods was before but there were very few plants or flowers growing anywhere. I was glad that we rode the trail rather than walked it because we got through it much faster. Four miles of nothing much to look at would have been a real drag.

So we will jump to the next morning. We walked down to the beach in the morning sun only to find a phragmities choked shoreline caked in dried algae and smelling vaguely noxious and the sky colored yellow from the industry down the coast. Come to find out that the mess on the beach was contaminated with E-coli and it was recommended that anyone with cuts or open sores not even go out there. Ugh.

Anyway, the birds can't read signs and this is where they live, so this is where we went. There were a few places that were still open to the water. Here a Canada goose pair and a blue-winged teal are nesting.

There were red-winged blackbirds galore, but I was looking for smaller birds, hoping for one or two new to me. I cannot honestly say whether or not I've ever seen this bird before, but I had certainly never identified a swamp sparrow before.

Not too far down the beach I spotted another sparrow. I could tell this one was different thanks to the stripes and spot on the chest. Pretty sure this is a song sparrow.

Another shot of a song sparrow chasing bugs on the ground.

Birding, I have found, is much like a treasure hunt. Once you become interested, and start taking note of who you've seen, the doors open up to a seemingly endless number of birds to be discovered. I think there are over 900 bird species in North America, so as a new birder (and probably one who's been doing it a while) every new place you visit is an opportunity to spot a new (to you) bird.

New birds are exciting, but spotting old favorites is fun too. There were several killdeer flying up and down the beach, calling de-deeee, de-deeeee. de-deeee. I was hoping for a nest sighting but the beach was too gross and squishy to walk on.

Here a blue-winged teal, a bird I first saw in Florida in March (but somehow never got around to blogging about) takes to the yellow air. Someone told me that Madonna got in some hot water for making some comment about Bay City, and how you knew you were there by the smell. "A stinky little town in Northern Michigan" is what she called it. Well, if the shoe fits....

I felt kind of bad for all the critters that have to live in this smelly, contaminated place. We were lucky--after this walk we went back to the RV, packed up and left. I know that late April can be a less attractive time of year than others, at least in this part of the world, but this was really a disappointment. However, we had Plan B in the wings--the Shiawasee National Wildlife Refuge was more or less on the way home, so we decided to stop there and hike, hoping for something a bit more interesting than what we found in Bay City.

Perhaps this fox was headed out of town too....

Tobico Marsh

The rail trail in Bay City extends north up to Tobico Marsh in the Bay City rec area. Our plan was to ride to the rail trail to the Andersen Nature Trail, hike that trail, then ride back to the campground. As we neared the marsh the rail trail crossed a bridge, and we spotted a muskrat swimming amongst the cattails and duck weed.




From the rail trail there is a paved connector that cuts across the marsh to the 4-mile Andersen Nature Trail loop. We stopped at an observation platform on the connector to, well, observe. It was a pleasant day but there wasn't a whole lot happening at the marsh.



See, our timing was off. This is a great birding area--most of the east coast of Michigan is a flyway for migrating species. But we'd missed the hawk migration by months. Waterfowl was probably several weeks before, and song birds had not yet started in earnest.

What we did see were lots of mute swans. We counted five nests on the small island in the marsh. While we were there, we noticed a bit of a conflict underway. Apparently this Canada goose had gotten a bit too close to a swan's territory, and a chase was underway. The goose's mate is there in the background, loudly honking.

The swan, with its huge black feet, was able to swim much faster than the goose, who very nearly got goosed.

The goose would take wing and fly, but only 30 feet or so before landing.

The swan would catch up rather quickly and the whole thing repeated itself, over and over around the lake. I don't know why the goose didn't just fly to the other end, unless it too had a nest nearby.

Before we headed into the woods I tried to get a few shots of the tree swallows, who were back from there winter homes in the south. It is a personal challenge of mine to get decent shots of birds in flight. A better lens would help, but this isn't too bad--cropped, of course.

I love to watch their aerial acrobatics. These two were either fighting or in amorous pursuit, it was hard to tell which.

Next: Andersen Nature Trail, Lori goes boom.

Chicken update

I know, I know, I said the next blog would be about a swan and a goose (at least I think I did) but I have to do an update about the chicks before time gets away from me and their all grown up!

We took them outside for the first time this past Friday. What a hoot. They had no idea. Didn't know what to do, where to go--the only thing they seemed able to do was poop, which they did a lot.

These are Lisa's feet, for scale. From left is Ethel, Lucy, Marianne and Ginger. Look at the gams on Ginger! She and Lucy are going to be big chickens, as they're already nearly twice the size of Ethel and have huge feet and legs.

The sun was pretty hot and they were nervous, beaks open and panting.

Here Marianne has ventured from the pack. Perhaps the others sent her on a recon mission. "Go tell us what's out there!!"

That's Ethel in the middle. We were worried about her for a day or two. While the others seemed to grow exponentially, she stayed quite small, although her feathers were growing. But she also seemed lethargic compared to the others, who after only a few days were running around the cage, jumping and flapping. We babied her for a while and now she seems to be just fine. She has turned out to be the sweetest of the bunch and will readily jump in my hand when I go visit with them.

I moved them back closer to the cage and into the shade, which seemed to settle them down, and I was able to get some nice close ups.

Marianne,

Lucy,

and Ginger. Ethel was too busy chasing bugs to bother with having her picture taken.

Here's a good one for comparison with the last photos I took of them. It's amazing how fast they grow, how long their feathers are already. Most likely they will not look much like they do now when they've grown up. Ginger here is getting some really dark red coloring.

You're right, Kittie, this one's gonna be trouble!