I was at Kensington wandering around looking for birds while this photographer was stationed in one spot watching one subject. I’m a bit envious of his equipment, but I think I had more fun.
Thanks, Cee for hosting these black and white challenges!
I’ve heard the herons are back out at Kensington, I’ve even seen pictures on Michigan birding Facebook groups of them flying around repairing and remodeling their nests in preparation for this year’s branchers. (Did you know baby herons were called branchers? Me either, I had to look it up!)
This morning, feeling restless, I decided to go out to see even though it was spitting snow and ice cold rain. But the forecast says it’s only going to get worse around here in the next week so I decided to just go this morning.
I arrived at the nature center around 7:45, it was dark and dreary and there were no other cars, unusual in my experience. Apparently most photographers knew better than to even try. I worried that there wasn’t enough light for my long lens.
As I was standing on the boardwalk, struggling to capture the comings and goings at the heron rookery, I heard a very loud cry right next to my right elbow.
This guy was demanding breakfast. It kind of felt like I was still at home with a certain short fuzzy little girl. I stopped what I was doing and offered him a couple peanuts from my pocket. He eagerly jumped into my hand and scarfed them up.
I had been wondering, on my drive to the park, whether the female blackbirds had arrived. And yes they have. At least one has. And she was disgruntled to be out there in the snow, so I gave her a few peanuts too.
I took a few more shots of the herons, vowing to come back some sunny morning, then headed into the woods. I was looking for skunk cabbage, a sure sign that it’s spring around here, even though it’s still snowing.
And of course I’d be visiting with my favorite little birds. I’ll share those with you in the next post.
Ah yes. I went out to Kensington nearly a week ago to see if there were red-winged blackbirds singing there. I had one lone male visiting my feeder at home, but I hadn’t heard the early blackbird chorus that announces spring every year here in Southeast Michigan.
But I got distracted, first by the turkeys and then by the redheaded woodpecker. Still….were there red-winged blackbirds here in Michigan, aside from the lonely guy at my feeder?
I could hear a few, down another icy trail, and I hoped I didn’t have to go too far to gather proof. They were mostly far away, hiding in the cattails. They weren’t making much noise, and seemed a bit shy, or maybe they were just shell-shocked by the freezing temperatures and snow.
One was walking up the path ahead of me. I thought maybe if I put some peanuts and oilers out I could coax him up into a more photogenic location.
The longer I stood there the more blackbirds I saw, though none were brave enough to come get the treats I put out.
Eventually they came closer, and ate some treats that I tossed near them. They even sang a little, but I know that later in the season they’ll be much happier to see me, once they figure out that the people visiting generally have food for them.
So yes, spring has officially sprung in Southeast Michigan. The red-winged blackbirds are here, let the snow begin to melt!
My purpose, this past Monday, in going out to my favorite park was to see if the red-winged blackbird was back here in southeastern Michigan. I had one visiting my backyard feeder, but I hadn’t heard him or any others singing, my true harbinger of spring.
I knew if they were anywhere, they’d be at Kensington which has large marshy areas and more importantly, people with food for the birds.
When I arrived I drove past the heron rookery in case the eagle happened to be there, and since he (or she?) was not, I didn’t bother to walk over there after I parked. Instead I considered which trail might be most effective for finding the blackbirds.
And then I remembered that I have been seeing beautiful images of the illusive (to me anyway) red headed woodpecker taken at this park. And I knew, from those pictures, what area of the trail system he had usually been seen.
So I decided to go check that out before more people showed up. I had only seen one other car in the lot, and I didn’t want a lot of people clomping around scaring off my birds! And speaking of clomping, I was wearing my Yax grippers, and let me tell you, wearing those on ice makes it impossible to sneak up on anything!
I arrived at the location I thought I’d find the red headed and there wasn’t a bird to be seen. Nothing. Not a sparrow or a mourning dove. Not a starling or a cardinal. No hawk, no crow. No bird sounds. I stood there a long time. Then I sighed and walked off down the trail, head down, dragging my heavy camera in defeat.
And then I heard the little squeak of a nuthatch. He was poking his head up over a slightly hollow stump. Someone had left some millet in the stump and he was poking around eating what he could find
He was adorable. And then there was a second set of squeaking, and I saw a second nuthatch on a nearby tree. Beautiful.
I walked over to their stump and put a few peanuts in there, as sort of a reward for posing so nice for me, and then I backed up and waited. Soon enough they were both running around on their stump, and my camera was following them.
And then I heard a bigger squawk. OMG, look what came in for a peanut!
Well, look at both of them, the red headed and a male downy woodpecker, tucked in lower on the right side of the stump. I could hardly breath as I was shooting.
And even when the red headed flew up into the tree he didn’t go far.
He kept posing for me, up and over branches, in and out of the sun. My arms ached from holding the big heavy lens up toward the sky.
But I couldn’t stop smiling.
I clicked away until I finally gave up. He wasn’t moving, and I had no idea if I had anything worthwhile.
Still smiling, I walked away. After all, I had to go find my blackbirds!
Before we were so beautifully interrupted by the cardinal seige, I was conteplating the continuation of an eagle search. I’d already been to the Great Lakes National Cemetary where I’d seen, from far away, the resident eagle and his nest. But it was still early and a beautiful day, maybe another eagle was waiting to be discovered at my favorite park.
Should I go look for it? Well of course I should.
So after some more mental arguing about other things I could be doing, mostly involving housework, I jumped back in the car and headed south to Kensington where eagles had been sighted at the heron rookery.
Not that I thought I’d be so lucky to find one there in the early afternoon. But it’s my favorite park and how could I go wrong, I knew I’d find something!
I took my time driving through the park, pulled up leisurely in a parking spot at the nature center. Even sat there awhile and looked at the eagle pictures I already had in my camera.
Then I looked up and spotted a big bump in the top of a tree. And me quite a ways away, with the wrong lens on the camera. Talk about unprepared.
I hustled over there, stopped at the first bench on the boardwalk and switched my lens, hoping he’d stick around long enough for me to get a shot, even if it wasn’t optimum.
He did. And he watched me the whole time too.
And apparently, when I took too long, he decided he’d had enough and he flew away…
…way over to a dead tree on the other side of the lake. With his back to those of us still photographing from the boardwalk.
I stayed and talked with another photographer while we waited to see where he’d go next. We hoped he’d come back to the rookery, but he decided to take a trip over to the back side of the lake where he was a tiny spot in the sky, lazily circling, checking out lunch prospects.
So I walked a bit on the trails, but they were covered in slippery ice and I was wearing old sneakers, so I didn’t stay long. I did manage to get some shots of some other, very cute, birds while I was there, and I’m sharing most of them here.
But..wait…did I show you the blue jays? Or the swans? No? Well, you have to see those. I guess another birdy type post is in order.
You can’t see too many birds…right?
Right.
As usual I had grand plans for Walktober. A place a couple of hours away was calling my name, but also as usual life got in the way and I can’t find a day when I can spend four hours to travel plus a couple hours of exploration.
So that adventure will have to wait for another time.
Meanwhile, it’s not that I haven’t had mini adventures right around here. Katie and I have wandered in plenty of parks this month. Any one of them would be a wonderful Walktober. But she already got to do her Walktober, and I wanted one of my own.
So I’ll share an adventure I recently had with a college friend I haven’t seen in many, many years. Since she retired from her career she’s become interested in birds; she’s joined birding groups online and is learning all kinds of cool things.
She’s seen my posts about the birds out at Kensington, and has never had a bird land on her hand before. She, like so many of you, wanted to experience that for herself. So we met out there on Wednesday.
I get such a kick, every time I take someone new out there, watching their face the first time a little bird lands on their hand. Every single person grins with such a quiet but intense joy.
The little birds weigh next to nothing, they rest so lightly on the fingertips, you’re not sure they stopped there at all. It’s magic.
So, we wandered the trails in the woods, stopping every time we heard the little ones chripping overhead, offering them special treats of peanuts and suet balls and black oilers.
Some of the birds were quite decisive, others took their time to select the perfect morsel.
It was a wonderful walk in the woods, on a beautiful, perfect day. We even saw a bird new to both of us, a juvinile red headed woodpecker! We didn’t get a close look, but we saw him (or her?) flit through the trees several times.
What an extraordinary bird, so beautiful when it flies, with slashes of bright white across the back of it’s wings.
So even though I didn’t get to travel to the far-off park this time, I promise I’ll share it with you when I do. Maybe it will be in November. Maybe it will be in 2022.
It’s nice to have something to look forward to.
Thanks, Robin, for hosting this Walktober for all of us. It was wonderful to get out into the world and enjoy everything that October has to share.
I feel as if summer is sliding away from me, days turning into minutes, weeks into moments. Yet it’s only the beginning of August, there’s plenty of summer left, especially for a retiree. Right? Being retired is enough to make me smile, but my walk on a midsummer’s morning made me absolutely grin.
I was out at my favorite park this past Thursday, while it was still July, while I could still consider it mid-summer, and yet I felt fall encroaching.
I went with my biggest lens, the better to see birds in their natural space versus standing on my outstretched palm.
But what I found instead was a whole forest filled with youngsters. And I don’t mean the busses of preschoolers that arrived as I was leaving. Thank goodness.
I have so much to show you from my walk in the woods, I don’t know if I should break it up into two posts, or if you’ll have the patience to read one long post.
I don’t even know if I have the patience to write one long post.
You can always scroll through and just look at the pictures. I have a feeling the words will be minimal anyway.
I got to the nature center early in the morning, but on the drive through the park I noticed my favorite willow tree island had a beautiful swan. So after I parked I walked back along the bikepath to capture her as she preened.
Notice the grey pile of fluff off to the right? That is her baby, or maybe more than one, I couldn’t really tell. Her partner is swimming behind the island, couldn’t see him well either.
But she (I’ve decided it’s a she, I really don’t know) sure was taking her time getting beautiful that morning.
Then I walked back to the parking lot at the nature center to get the rest of my gear, and found this exhausted and hungry mama, right beside the bike rack.
With my long lens I was able to get quite close without interrupting her breakfast.
And beside her, on the other side of the bike rack, were the normal crane parking lot greeters, getting spruced up for their shift of collecting the lot fee from everyone arriving to enjoy the trails.
Lucky for me I got there before they clocked in.
So I headed into the woods…
…and met this guy right away. He already had breakfast so I didn’t offer him anything more.
It was right about then that I noticed a sense of fall seeping into air. I shook it off and ventured further into the dark cool green, and interrupted two moms and their little ones having some breakfast of their own.
I stood there a long time watching them watching me.
This little one was intensly curious about me.
And then I heard a titmouse, just over my right shoulder, angrly asking why I wasn’t providing a snack. So I handed off a peanut and moved on.
I only saw one other person my entire walk in the woods, and that was another photographer.
As soon as he got down from the bench and moved on this mama came out of the brush.
I took a different trail and moved deeper into the woods. The long lens wasn’t really the right choice with so little light. But I didn’t want to stop to change it because you just never know what you’ll see.
Or how far away it might be.
But the mosquitos were beginning to follow me. I pictured myself running out of the woods with a swarm of bugs trailing me, sort of like a Bernstein Bear cartoon. I moved faster.
After clambering over a downed tree that crossed the trail I was shooting an image of a tree damaged in the recent storms where the fresh wood had a similar color to deer, confusing me for a moment…
…when out of the corner of my eye I saw more of that reddish brown.
These two didn’t seem to realize I was there. Until mama did.
The baby didn’t seem too bothered by me at all, but I went on down the trail so they could enjoy mama/baby time alone. Plus I was beginning to get hungry myself, it had been a long time since my own breakfast, and I was still deep in the woods with a long walk back.
I tried not to stop anymore as I booked it out of the deep woods. Except when I saw something interesting. Or fun. Or both.
But mostly I was trying to get back into the open where the breeze would keep the bugs from swarming around my head. Yes, I had applied bug spray before I left the car, but not on my hands, because I knew I’d be feeding birds. I guess that made me fair game for the mosquitos.
Back out in the open I had a nuthatch and a chickadee makeing big noises about getting a treat, but they wouldn’t come down to my hand. I finally figured out that maybe they were this year’s young, and not quite confident about the whole process of coming in for a snack.
But eventually they both came down, after doing a fly over or two to check me out.
The sky was getting dark and I figured it would soon rain, so I headed back to the car. Climbing the stairs to the parking lot I could hear people, cars and busses.
I was glad I’d gotten my walk in the woods finished before the masses arrived. Time to head back home to the princess who would just be getting up from her morning nap.
It was a good midsummer day all around.
We had some bad weather Saturday night, with rain blowing sideways for a time. I was sure that my tent, up in the backyard, would be flooded but it wasn’t. There was, however, a tornado that touched down not many miles from us during the storm, and a tree across the street from us split, falling across the road and into our yard.
None of that made me smile.
What did make me smile was a couple hours of paddling on a lake with one of my college roommates. We don’t see each other very often, but it’s always a good time when we do.
We caught up with each other’s lives, her kids, my dog.
And we enjoyed a sweet after the storm breeze, bright blue skies and sunshine as we floated across the water.
You just can’t beat being on the water for giving yourself a pick-me-up.
So that’s my smile for this week. What made you smile?
It’s a long story and I don’t have time to tell it. So you’ll just have to be happy with this image of a sandhill crane colt.
Look at it’s tiny little wings!
Change Is Hard 