Of Turkeys and Eagles

SLBD continued:

After a walk to the beach and a shower I drove back to my campsite. Boy was I ready for dinner and a book! But as I pulled into the campground I saw three wild turkey hens, who were hanging out near the campground host's site. I was excited and yet not--I really was tired, but I knew I could not ignore these beautiful birds, so near at hand. I parked the van and went back to an empty site with my camera to get some photos.

Wild turkey hen in the Platte River campground.

They moved steadily through the campground, poking around in the duff looking for yummy bits to eat.

They came within six or seven feet of me. Obviously they were quite used to people.

Such gaudy plumage! I think they look like a five year-old put them together.

Such sweet faces and expressive eyes--they look vulnerable with their bare heads. How do they handle winter?

I eventually went back to camp and made dinner. While I ate they walked right through my site and past my table. What a gift!

The next morning, Friday, I left Sleeping Bear Dunes. My plan was to drive to Grayling, in the middle of the state, and drop off some artwork at a gallery that is carrying our work, then drive up to Hartwick Pines State Park, a few minutes north of town. I was going to hike along the Au Sable River and stay Friday night at the park, then go home Saturday. But once I was on the road I felt more like heading home instead of camping another night. I decided to just go to Grayling and then go home.

The GPS took me to Grayling by way of Traverse City on M-72, which skirts the southern shores of the west and east arms of Grand Traverse Bay. I wasn't real excited to be in Traverse City during morning rush hour. But as M-72 rounded the east bay and began to head north I happened to look out at the water. There, standing on a sand bar, where two bald eagles. I whipped off the road into the parking lot of a defunct hotel, grabbed my gear and sprinted across the road. I noticed a few other folks with cameras down the shore.

A pair of bald eagles in the east arm of Grand Traverse Bay.

The morning light was soft on them but they were a ways away--these images are all cropped quite a bit. It was not warm--low 40's at best--and a stiff breeze was blowing from the south. I hadn't bothered to throw a coat on and it wasn't long before I was shivering.

The eagle on the left is munching on a tasty morsel.  Mmmmmm....

While the eagles were pretty they weren't doing much and I soon got distracted. One eagle flew off while I was watching some ducks out on the bay. Then I got distracted my a killdeer who landed in front of me in the muddy muck near shore.

Killdeer on Grand Traverse Bay

I looked up in time to see the second eagle take to the air.  Such majesty--and to think we very nearly wiped them out. Turkeys too were hunted to dangerously low numbers. Their comeback is a testament to what good, sound regulations can do.

Ben Franklin had wanted the wild turkey to be our national symbol, but we ended up with the eagle instead. I think either would have been a great choice.

And thus ends the Sleeping Bear Dunes posts--finally!

Near Disaster

What the heck is this, you ask? Well, this is what happens when you set your camera and tripod down, don't pull one of the legs out all the way, and it tips over when your back is turned, smashing onto a tile floor.

We had just returned from the Kirtland's Warbler bus tour, and the rain that had dogged us all morning had finally come and it was pouring. I needed to get to my van so I could go get ice for my cooler and make lunch before the seminars began. I stopped in the hotel lobby to ask the T-shirt vendor if they had a bag I could put over my camera--I'd left all that stuff in the van. I had set the tripod down and turned to reach for the bag when the fellow said "Watch out!" and I turned in time to see it hit the floor. It made a tremendous crash, the lens cap went shooting across the room, and there was a sudden silence as everyone turned to look. I said something silly like, "That was unfortunate", picked the thing up, thanked the women who had retrieved my lens cap, and slunk out of the hotel.

So in the van I started looking over my gear. The camera seemed fine. My 300mm lens, however, was not happy, and that was one of the first pictures I took with it. I tried all sorts of different combinations, took the 1.4x converter off, tried both camera bodies, all with the same effect. I was mad. Never in 30 years have I dropped a camera. I also rarely use a strap or a tripod. Only now, when I took my hand off of it for a second, did I have an accident.

I cussed and swore and cried a little. I considered going home. I put all the gear away and sulked. But after a few minutes I got the lens out again and looked it over. I noticed something seemed loose inside. I gave it a good shake--what was there to lose? I hooked it back up to a camera and fiddled with it, and realized that the problem had something to do with the image stabilizer in the lens. After messing around with it, I got it to start working again. Whew! So I made myself a sandwich, ate a quick lunch, and went back in to listen to the welcome speech. I decided though to skip the first seminar, go get gas and ice, and then test the lens.

The hotel is right on the beach, so I took the camera down to the shore to see what was hanging around. First I saw this Spotted Sandpiper working its way towards the pier. I can see, looking at this bird, how woodcocks and snipes are in the shorebird family. The have very similar facial features.



As I moved closer to the water I saw a Kildeer, who spotted me as well.


It made a half-hearted attempt at the broken wing display then flew off. I looked for a nest or young birds but didn't see either.



I then turned my attention to the water where I saw a group of Common Mergansers. I had never seen the male before--my experience with them was always mom with chicks, at which point dad is long gone.


Satisfied that my camera was going to be able to limp along for the rest of the weekend, I went back into the hotel to catch the next talk, one on warbler ID. I was surprised to learn that there are 37 species of warbler in Michigan, and I ticked off in my head the ones I had seen. But there were many I had not, and one that struck me as particularly handsome was the Chestnut-sided. Ooo! I thought, I want to see that bird!

After the warbler talk I decided to skip the last seminar and head back to the campground. The big dinner with Don and Lillian Stokes of Stokes Nature Guides fame was that evening. I needed to get changed and regroup. I ended up taking a nap, but had about 10 minutes before I needed to leave. I grabbed my camera sans tripod and made the short walk into the woods. There, tumbling and spinning through the trees, was a female Black and White Warbler. I love the pattern on her tail coverts, it reminds me of the Empire State Building.


I also saw a Magnolia and Yellow-rumped Warbler, then spotted this young fellow in the tree directly before and above me.



A Chestnut-sided Warbler! I'm telling you, I need to wish for a million dollars, because here was the bird just a few hours before I was hoping I would get to see. And thanks to Roger Erikkson, who had give the warbler presentation, I knew this was a first year male--his chestnut stripe was broken in the middle.

And then, as if on cue, a breeding male showed up, his solid chestnut stripe and bolder markings showing the difference very clearly.


Dinner that night was fabulous, Don and Lillian hawked their new book, and I returned to the campground late and crashed. Rain moved in with some thunder, making for a restless night. I had signed up to take a car pool trip to look for grassland birds in the morning, and I wondered if I had enough rain gear with me!

A Tern for the Better

2010 Florida posts con't....


As I have mentioned, I know nothing about waterfowl, a rather ironic state since I grew up on a lake. So a bit of advice--if you want to immerse yourself in them, go to Florida in mid-winter. Holy Cow! I was taking pictures of birds I couldn't identify, until I got home and put them on the computer. Below is my first American wigeon, with a Northern pintail behind.



I will refrain from posting any more ducks for the time being as I have better shots coming later on. Let me just say that I was overwhelmed by the sheer numbers of them.

To see the most stuff along the Black Point Wildlife Drive, or any other wildlife excursion, it is best to get out as early as possible, and drive very slow, and stop often to just sit and watch. This Killdeer was hardly a speck moving along the mudflat in the morning sun. Go too fast and this bird gets missed.


Here a Snowy egret shows off its ridiculous yellow feet. Makes me think of the University of Oregon's player's shoes they wore in the BCS Championship game last week.


As I paused on the side of the road I noticed an occasional splash in the water along the drive. I thought at first it was a fish jumping, but as I moved farther down the road I realized I was wrong.


It was this fellow, a Forsters tern, fishing the canal along the road.


I had a blast, standing next to the car, trying to get shots of him as he zipped by.


Back and forth he went, and without warning he would suddenly plunge into the water, so quickly that I was not able to get a shot of it. I never did see him come up with a fish.


What a beautiful, graceful bird.

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....