This pretty boy is spending his days flying from the crab apple tree to our laundry room window.
He’s been doing this for at least the last 5 days, most of the day, in all kinds of light.
I know he sees his reflection and is protecting his territory. But you’d think he’d be exhausted by now. The windows, just recently washed are covered in stripes of waxy bird grease where he’s slid, flapping his wings.
I hope he figures it out soon. Now I know where the term ‘bird brain’ comes from.
I love October, and I love Robin’s Walktober. I’ve been joining in for many years and I always look forward to posting about some adventure that I’ve done especially for this post.
If I’m totally transparent, this was actually a drive rather than a walk. But all is fair in love and Walktobers.
For this year’s Walktober I visited the Shiawasee National Wildlife Refuge, which is about an hour north of me and just 5 miles north of Frankenmuth Michigan. There’s hiking trails along the dikes that manage the water and a motor drive around the perimeter of the portion of the park that’s public.
The drive is only open from June 1 to September 30 every year. So, being totally transparent, this Drivetober was actually done on September 30. Not even in October!
Still I think Robin will stretch the rules for me this one time. I hope.
On the drive you’re not allowed to just stop wherever you want. But people do, for the fleeting moment it takes to grab a photo, especially if no one is behind you.
There are a couple of spots designed to pull off the road, but rarely is there anything you want to see from those spots. The drive is mainly on the top of the dykes, with water on either side, so you don’t have a lot of options.
I’ve been known to drive the 6 mile loop twice during a visit. I haven’t been up there for the last couple years so I was excited to see what I’d find.
I was specifically looking for pelicans.
Mostly I saw egrets (big white birds) and blue herons (big grey blue birds) and lots of little unidentified birds.
If I’m honest it was mostly egrets. I’ve always had trouble photographing egrets because they’re all white and so often end up blown out in a photograph where the camera sets the shutter speed for the rest of the image.
I shot 1800 images. As you can imagine, some are not so good.
But I weeded it down to 130 images that I’m mostly pleased about.
And no, I’m not going to subject you to 130 pictures of egrets. I’ll try to pick the best or most interesting, but sometimes I might slip one in that has a soft focus because it was the best I could get. I hope you’ll understand.
I can say most of these birds were a really really long way from the car.
I think I want a 600m lens for a photo shoot like this. Especially if I’m in a car and not lugging it four miles through the woods. Which, if I’m honest, isn’t very often.
Maybe I should rent one on the few occasions I got back up to the drive. Anyway…as I said I was mostly looking for pelicans.
Bet most of you don’t know that Michigan even has pelicans. I didn’t either until I started seeing photographs of them out at this magical place. And I don’t always find them at all.
But I found them, far off in the middle of the water, mere specks with my naked eye. And of course, like most of the rest of the birds I’d seen that day, they took off as soon as I stopped the car.
It was a thrill to see them, and once I had, I felt the trip was worthwhile. Even though I didn’t see one bald eagle.
I headed toward the exit smiling…when suddenly….
…wood ducks! The side of the drive was tall with grasses, so it was hard to get a shot. I thought I’d maybe just step out of the car to get above the grass…
…but of course they flew instantly. That’s OK, I found these 3 guys just up the road.
So….herons, egrets, swans, pelicans and wood ducks. I can’t wait until the drive opens again next June. There will be babies to photograph by then. And you just never know what else. If I time it with migration there will be hundreds of sand hill cranes, or lots of little bouncy warblers.
Meanwhile I’m sure I’ll be up there a time or two to hike the trails. It’s harder to see birds in the woods, and no matter how quietly I try to walk they always hear me coming, but it’s a beautiful place on foot too.
If you’re ever over in my part of the world, let me know…I’ll go back up with you to see what we can see!
Thank you, Robin, for hosting Walktober again this year. I wouldn’t miss it, and I’m looking forward to seeing where everybody went on their own adventures!
Once upon a time there was a Ms. Hairy Woodpecker, enjoying a peaceful morning searching for a tasty insect among the late summer blossoms of a lovely garden.
She was minding her own business when suddenly…
…she realized something was coming up behind her. Why it was that silly little chipmunk!
Ridiculous that this little rodent would think he could beat her to breakfast! Did he think she was a birdbrain?
Did he think she’d just give up her favorite feeding location to a little nim-nut like him?
She thought not!
And the little chipmunk scurried back down the tree, toute de suite. After all, there were plenty of treats back on the ground where he belonged. He wondered what he had been thinking anyway.
Ms. Hairy Woodpecker went back to enjoying her brunch.
And then moved on to another favorite location that advertised being chipmunk free.
A couple evenings ago I was watching birds come and go as we were eating dinner. I noticed a flurry of activity, wings fluttering, branches of the crab apple tree bouncing around. It was happening right at the lower left corner of my view out the window.
I wasn’t sure what was happening. So I kept an eye on that spot and soon a male cardinal shot out of the tree. But the bouncing around continued.
It was a baby! I quickly googled whether cardinals had babies this late in the year. Guess what? It said they had between 3 and 4 broods a year, sometimes into mid-September.
Daddy was over at the flat feeder munching on a bunch of sunflower oil seeds. Pretty soon he zoomed back over to the crab apple tree and the youngster who had waited for his return. The flapping of wings resumed.
Daddy fed junior something (I’m guessing chewed up seed) and sat for a moment and then went back to the flat feeder for more.
Eventually daddy cardinal sat on a branch a bit away from the baby. He looked exhausted. He’s molting and he’s tired and it has been raining for days.
I hope mama cardinal is around somewhere to help so that daddy isn’t trying to do all the work alone. Of course for all I know mama is sitting somewhere else with junior #2, feeding and flying and resting and feeding….
I bet mom and dad are glad this is the last bunch of little ones to bring up! They’re probably just like human parents, glad when it’s time for the kids to get on the school bus.
It’s cooler here now, today for example, it’s 60 F and raining. It’s been cooler for several days. Most of the migrating birds have left. But I still have some hummingbirds.
They’ve been fun to watch as they battle over ‘their’ feeder. I thought all summer that I had one pair, a male and a female. How many hummers do you see in this image?
That’s the most I’ve ever seen near our feeder at one time. I hid in the corner of the living room and shot through the window. It’s hard to tell for sure how many you have when they’re flying at each other. This time, they were hungry enough to let each other eat.
They will be gone any day now. This morning I’m pretty sure there are only two. Soon I’ll be putting the feeder away, but I always leave it up for a week or so after I don’t see them anymore. You never know when a straggler will come through town, and they have such a long way to go.
I hope they have safe travels and a warm winter. And that they come back to me next spring.
Last week I was sitting on the deck in early evening. I heard a hummingbird chirping in the beech tree.
There she was, sitting on a branch in between beautifully lit pinkish leaves. She was backlit too.
It seemed as if she had just finished dinner and was sitting, fat and content, in the evening sun.
She spent a lot of time itching her head…
…and staring around, up and down and over there.
She fluffed her feathers and left them wide open in the warming sun.
Her tongue came and went. I wasn’t sure if she was catching insects…
…or just practicing tongue aerobics.
She peed four times while she was there. I guess that sugar water goes right through a girl.
And after perhaps 20 minutes of sitting and enjoying the evening light she took off.
I enjoyed watching her, and took over 300 images. She’s still flitting around the feeder but I expect she’ll be gone soon. I hope I get to visit with her once more before she goes.
As you know I have a lot of birds in my backyard. Mostly because I feed them. They are not unlike Penny in their affection for me based on their feeder fullness quotient analysis.
This week this rather cheeky yet uncertain little guy showed up.
He hopped along the deck railing, back and forth, seeming unfazed by the bird traffic all around him.
He picked at the husks of seeds left behind by previous diners.
He stared at me.
And then, eventually, he flew off.
I’m thinking he’s a juvenile red breasted grosbeak. Maybe male, given the yellowish breast? I’m using the logic that red headed woodpeckers have brown heads when they’re juveniles.
But it could be a female too, they have a yellowish cast to their chest feathers.
What do you think?
