little year

Everybody has to start somewhereWe headed back to Chicago today, but we made three stops first: Fayette State Park, the Mead Paper Company's Auto Tour, and the Nahma Marsh Trail. Nothing at Fayette, Nahma was a decrepit dump, and so the Mead corporation's ill-kept trail provided the only thrill: a Yellow-bellied Sapsucker. Not worthy of a post, really, except I wanted to show the sign above, which we saw on our way south to Menomonee. That's worth a bird or two, so I hereby declare today a success.

posted by Scrubb at 11:30 PM | permalink | stuck under odds and ends

"Read more about me after the jump!"Today was devoted to Hiawatha National Forest, which is on the east side of the peninsula. The forest is laced with dirt and sand roads, and it's also supposed to be laced with birds. We found the roads all right -- they had beautiful names like FR3344 and FR3145 -- but the birds were no shows. It was a pretty place all the same, especially since we were the only people there. We didn't leave the car very often, though, because of the bugs. So I guess today was a typical Little Year day: beautiful scenery empty of birds. If we want lifers, maybe we need to go somewhere butt ugly, like Texas. The highlight for me, though, was the abandoned Raco Airport.

View of the lek/runway from the SUV's cockpitThe airport was built during WWII to protect the locks at Sault St. Marie from the Luftwaffe, and the army kept it open through the Cold War because of the Russkies. When the political situation thawed out, the army abandoned it, and it was opened to the public. Some part of it is leased to a company that does vehicle testing, but they ain't allowed to interfere with the People enjoying their Rights (i.e, drunken teens laying patches).

It was an absolute riot driving along these runways. There are three of them, each a mile long (I measured), forming a cement triangle. It's hard to explain why it was so much fun, and Pole obviously thought I was a little crazy. It's not that I went very fast, it's just that they were so expansive . . . and so abandoned. I had a real omega man thing going on. It was one of the most fun times I've ever had.

We went there because Sharp-tailed Grouse -- who do their courtship displays in open areas called "leks" -- have adopted the runways as concrete substitutes for these here leks. But, of course, we didn't see no stinking grouse. It was probably too late in the year (and the day) to see their rituals, but Pole did spot a snapping turtle disporting itself upon the runway. What it was doing there, I don't know. I thought it might have been sick because it seemed a little slow, even for a turtle, and there didn't seem to be any water nearby. Maybe it was just sunning itself. Or maybe it just want to screw a grouse.

Pole gets some EVA in the bug-free atmosphere

I did see one lifer today. There was a mating pair of Red Crossbills that we scoped in a sparse pine forest along a winding ridge. So I finally caught up with Pole, who saw the bird in January. The wind made the forest bug free, so it was nice to step out of the car for a little bit.

posted by Scrubb at 08:09 PM | permalink | stuck under lifers + other animals

If only my own mother were so tender . . .Just about 45 miles away from where we were staying on Michigan's Garden Peninsula is the gargantuan Seney National Wildlife Refuge. I've been wanting to go there for some time, but since it's only open from May 15th to October 15th, I've always just missed that small window of visiting opportunity. But not today, Seney will not be missed, no sir, Seney will not be missed.

At the pond behind the nature center, we saw trumpeter swans and COMMON LOONS. Per the usual, the bugs were pretty fierce. We tried walking one of the trails that was supposed to be good for migrants, but the flies were biting, so back we went. We ended up birding pretty much entirely from the car, taking a driving loop through the marshes that was pretty spectacular. We saw lots more trumpeter swans (they're a huge breeding success story at Seney) and lots more loons, as well as mother loons with their dark, fluffy babies on their backs. (If only my own mother had been as tender with me, I'd be a much nicer person.) And seeing so many loons, we got to hear their beautiful haunting calls. You really know you're in the north woods when you hear a loon. And since they're a barometer of how clean the water is, I felt as if I really was in an unspoiled wilderness, in Scrubb's wilderness-spoiling SUV. (Well, what are you gonna do . . .)

Aside from the lovely loons, we saw a SPOTTED SANDPIPER, a SOLITARY SANDPIPER, and some time later, a BELTED KINGFISHER feeding fish to his mate as she sat on a tree. It was pretty quiet on the wildlife front, maybe because it was midday. The only lifer on this trip out was a WILSON'S SNIPE, but it was still cool because we got to see it in its winnowing courtship display flight, the wind making weird woo-woo noises through its feathers. We actually got out of the car for that one. We also got out of the car to see two beavers swimming, and then climbing up the banks. Scrubb got too close and scared them off.

A Seney scene

The nicest part about Seney was actually being there. We were completely alone on these tiny dirt roads winding through these huge marshes, and the sky was a dark periwinkle shade that matched the water, and it always threatened to rain, but never did, and then the sun would come out, and the loon would cry. Do you remember? Can you forget it? All alone except for the loon, the sky, and the water?

posted by Pole at 10:12 PM | permalink | stuck under LIST + lifers + other animals

The official Edmund Fitzgerald puzzle -- a lifer for us both Today we were finally on our way to Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Our stated objective was the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory to try to pick up some late migrants, but the unstated real objective was the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, which is located at the exact same place.

I don't think Scrubb has mentioned that any time we travel north toward Lake Superior, he plays Gordon Lightfoot's "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald," just to hear about "the big lake they call Gitchee Gumee." For some reason, Scrubb doesn't bring any other music CDs to listen to as we're driving -- except for Gordon Lightfoot -- so I'm guessing we've heard "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" at least, hmmm, let's give a conservative estimate of one million times. The other thing Scrubb really wanted was an Edmund Fitzgerald puzzle. And what better place to get an official Edmund Fitzgerald puzzle than the Great Lakes Shipwreck Museum, whose raison d'etre is pretty much the Edmund Fitzgerald.

Anyway, pretending that we were birders, we stopped at a nature wildlife viewing area just south of Escanaba, where we both saw a MARSH WREN. We spent a frustrating 30 minutes trying to get a better look -- it was obviously in the midst of some serious nest building. It would fly up for a second with a piece of straw, then dive back into the reeds for a few minutes, then whizz up, do its old-fashioned sewing machine song, flit away for more nest building materials, hide some more, fly up for a millisecond, drop down again -- well, you get the picture. Since it was a lifer for Scrubb, we spent the time trying to make sure we had a good I.D., but Gordon Lightfoot was calling, and we still had hours of driving ahead of us -- and what if the museum closed at 4 pm? Or even worse, what if the gift shop were closed and we couldn't get the puzzle?

We arrived at Whitefish Point a few minutes before 4 o'clock and found that everything, including the all-important museum gift shop, was open til 6 pm. Since we were cool on time, we stopped at the Whitefish Point Bird Observatory first. The observatory is just a two-room shack, half of which is a not very well-stocked birding gift shop, and the other a room with a long white board with detailed bird observations, which, much to our disappointment, stopped at May 31st. The woman behind the counter wasn't much help telling us what birds were still around, but she said there were some evening grosbeaks at the feeder outside the observatory earlier. Of course, they weren't there now. And the bugs were supposed to be mighty fierce on the trails, which looked like tick heaven, being narrow and heavily overgrown and obviously not much used this time of year.

So instead of taking the biting black fly and tick-infested nature walk, we decided to visit the museum instead. We saw a sad, 15-minute movie about the Edmund Fitzgerald, accompanied by Gordon Lightfoot's music. Then we visited the museum proper, where we saw scaled-down replicas of some less known Lake Superior shipwrecks, and finally, the holy of holies, the actual bell of the Edmund Fitzgerald that was brought up by divers in the 1990s. Gordon Lightfoot was playing softly in the background here, too. (He's on the board of directors for the museum.)

I'm not sure if it was all the stormy Lake Superior footage - or the egg and sausage breakfast buffet at the crummy Best Western we stayed at -- but poor Scrubb was taken violently ill at the museum. He looked like Val Kilmer as the dying Doc Holliday in Tombstone, all pale-white and sweaty, but not dressed as well.

As I waited for Scrubb to feel better, I went to the gift shop, and successfully identified the official Edmund Fitzgerald puzzle in its optimal habitat. I also walked by the observatory feeders, and saw both a male and female EVENING GROSBEAK. I got great views of both -- they were only about 10 feet away -- busy eating seeds. This was a bird I've been waiting to see a long time, so I was pretty happy -- and it's a pretty spectacular bird -- I went to get Scrubb, but he was feeling too lousy to see it. I got my binoculars out of the car and got even better looks, and went to get Scrubb again. When he was finally up to seeing them, of course, they were gone.

But at least he got his official Edmund Fitzgerald puzzle.

posted by Pole at 08:10 PM | permalink | stuck under LIST + challenges + lbjs + lifers

We both managed to see CHIMNEY SWIFTS in our respective neighborhoods, about a week apart. As usual, Pole saw it first. End of transmission.

posted by Scrubb at 03:47 PM | permalink | stuck under LIST