Birds and Turtles at Kensington Metropark

Arrowhead with beetle.

Several weeks ago we took a weekend morning and visited Kensington Metropark, a wonderful park not 20 minutes from our house. At 4,481 acres it's a pretty big park. Kent Lake sits in the middle of it, and there's a golf course and 8 mile paved bike path. There's also a farm center, disc golf course, boat rentals and waterpark.

In addition to all of this is a nature center and accompanying nature trails. Wildwing Lake, next to the center, has a heron rookery, and there are birds galore along the nature trails as well as the park in general, an oasis in the midst of urban sprawl.

Male and female red-wing blackbirds at Wildwing Lake.

As is to be expected we generally stick to the nature trails when we visit this park. It sits right off of Interstate 96, and the traffic noise can be overwhelming, especially on the lake. The nature center and trails offer a more secluded and quieter experience.

Kingbird in flight--not bad for a hundred feet or more away! (image is cropped)

A boardwalk with railings provides easy viewing access of the rookery, which is situated on an island in Wildwing Lake. It provided me with a place to rest my camera (this is pre-Canon 60D) to get some shots, since I decided against my tripod. The rookery was empty by this time, of course, but several Eastern kingbirds were putting on a show along the island's shore, gleaning insects.

One common sight on a warm sunny day such as this are painted turtles, sunning themselves on logs and, in this case, water lily rhizomes.

Mr. Grumpy Face!

Another turtle provided a somewhat different view.

As I watched he wiggled and stretched, repeatedly grabbing his shell with his front foot.

Males can be identified by their long claws, which are much longer than the females.

I was excited to catch this cedar waxwing flying over the lake, apparently gleaning insects. I've never seen them do this before, I only know them as fruit eaters.

A female wood duck plied the waters, well hidden in the lilies.

We stopped several times and fed the chickadees. These birds, along with nuthatches, downy woodpeckers and titmice are habituated and will readily come to an outstretched hand with seeds or nuts.

As we made our way around the loop and back towards the parking lot, I caught movement in the understory, and was able to get one quick shot of this bird before it flew off. I had to wait until I got home to identify it. I believe it is a female blackburnian warbler, which apparently is not a common sight at Kensington. I sent the image to the head of the area Audubon Society to see if anyone else comes up with a different bird.

Female blackburnian warbler? We shall see....

More Ontario Birds

Armed with my new lens and converter, I set out just after sunrise on day two, August 27, to get photos of birds along the shore of Crescent Lake. Lisa and Lori had been out the day before and reported scads of warblers in the shrubs along the water. So I paddled across the lake and parked myself nose-in at the waterline, and waited for something to fly by.

I wish that I had done two things first--figured out how to get my tripod into/onto my kayak, and put the polarizer on my lens. The first would have helped with camera movement, the second would have helped reduce the blinding glare off of the birds. Ah well, live and learn. The more time I spend trying to get really good shots of birds, the more impressed I am with people who are able to actually do it.

The first bird to show itself was a Nashville warbler. Another first for me, I didn't know what it was until I got back to camp and dragged out my Sibley's.



As you can see, I also have a problem focusing. Shooting into a mass of sticks and twigs, one's auto-focus is nearly useless--it can't pick the bird out of that jumbled mess. The problem is, I can't either! My manual focus point seems too often to be just in front of the bird. I may have to play with the diopter adjuster and see if I can't fix that shortcoming.

The second bird to come by was this Black-throated green warbler.


Canada warblers were plentiful (go figure!) and small groups of them would work their way along the shore, picking off bugs in the shrubs and Joe Pye weed.


Cedar waxwings were everywhere too. I like this shot looking up at their bellies.


This one looks like a Christmas tree topper.


This little bird looks to have had a rough night! My best guess is a Lincoln's sparrow. Its companion stayed hidden in the shrubbery. She danced around on a dead log for a few minutes, warming up in the morning sun.


Later in the day I walked the camp road again, and saw many young juncos working the underbrush. From a distance, I watched as they would hop into the air and grab at some unseen goodie about a foot or so off the ground. I assumed they were catching bugs. Then I came across one in a more open area, and I watched as it fluttered up and grabbed at grasses. It brought the business end down and nibbled the seeds off, as in the shot below. Watching this I remembered that the juncos that come round here in the winter are seed eaters, so this made perfect sense.


I am looking forward to the day when the juncos make their return to our home. Remember, I actually like winter!


Next: Pictographs at Agawa Bay

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!