Michigan landscapes

It seems like it's been a lifetime since I was up in Michigan to attend the Nettie Bay School of Birding. Much has happened since then, and it turns out that Life has taken precedence over my blog. It lingers in the back of my mind, and I often think to myself "Maybe tonight I'll get a blog post done," only to realize that before I know it, bed time is upon me with nothing to show for my mental nod toward blog-land. I admire those who can keep a steady blog regardless of the bumps and curve balls that life might throw at them.

But I digress. I'll take you back to late May, when spring migration was just falling off its peak, and I was falling in love with Michigan landscapes all over again. Dramatic sunsets, birch bark, pristine lakeside beaches... all nostalgic memories of that great state up north. Enjoy.

Mother Nature airs her dirty laundry

I've never been one for pulling pranks on April Fool's Day, and I'm not about to start now. However, after looking at some wildflower photos I took today, I couldn't resist sharing a few images that are joke-worthy all on their own.

One flower that is prolifically in bloom right now is Dutchman's Breeches. Unfortunately, these pendulous pairs of pantaloons can be tricky to photograph. Being white flowers, any imperfections show up very easily, so getting a nice "clean" set of of breeches is somewhat of a challenge. Some fun can be had with the bad shots, though. Due to the way the flowers dangle on the stalk, it's easy to infer the notion of laundry hanging out on the line.


For example, the dingy pair hanging off to the right looks like it was soaked in tea or coffee for a while, and just wouldn't quite come clean. Those stubborn stains!

I call this the "poopy diaper" shot. Shouldn't take too much of a stretch of the imagination to figure out why.
I didn't come away with too many shots of this flower that I particularly liked, but here's one shot where someone got the bleach right and all the pants are clean:

Happy April! Get out there and smell the dirty diapers wildflowers!

Springtime beauty

Spring has sprung in my little corner of the world, and how! Reports from around the state confirm that most flowers and trees are at least 2 weeks ahead of schedule (in terms of bloom time) due to the ridiculously mild winter we've had and also the early warming trend we've seen so far this spring. Tonight we are under a freeze warning, though, so I'm not sure what our heavily flowered landscape will look like upon awakening in the morning.

Luckily I was able to get out on our property and some neighboring property over the weekend to get photos of just a few of the things that are in bloom. Enjoy!

Bluebells in my garden. This is the first year they have bloomed, even though I planted them 2 years ago.

Newly emerged Bluebell flower buds, kissed by a dew drop.

Bluets, a dainty but cheery flower.

How could you not be cheered by a flower that has a sunshine burst in the middle?

Bloodroot, which is normally just starting to bloom, is already starting to fade, with many plants already gone to fruit. This one is tattered and worn, but still beautiful.

When out looking at nature, you never know what you'll come across. Here, a pair of snail shells, the larger being about the size of a dime (if that), the tiny one being barely larger than a pin head. Always keep your eyes peeled for magical treasures!

Thinking spring: reprise

Another post from the archives...

Spring is settling in here quite nicely as we march on toward May. Perhaps a little too nicely, I had feared. The numbers registering on the thermometer have risen to summer-like levels on more than one occasion, making me wonder if we're just going to skip over spring entirely. That happened a few years back. This past weekend came to us with highs in the upper 50's, though, so I guess spring still has a bit of a hold on us, and we surely haven't said good-bye to nighttime frost yet.  That just wouldn't be right.


Right now we are in "The Season of Explosion." One day you go out and don't see much. The next day you go out and -POOF-! There's suddenly so much color. And the next day -POOF!- again, more color. It just keeps going and going. We'll reach a saturation point eventually, but for now, I'm enjoying the explosions and the prospect of new beauty every day.

While beauty abounds, this time of year does have its challenges.  Even  the process of planting flowers can take on a life all its own.  All it takes is one new or unfamiliar bird sound to make me drop my spade and forget all about the planting.  My attention shifts entirely to craning my neck and locating the bird in question.  Even though the trees are only just barely leafed out, birds that like to flit about high in the tippy-tops of the trees are still a challenge to find.  At least I'm finally learning to bring my binoculars out with me when I step outside, because I know I will need them.

The Buckeye trees, of which we have many on our property, have already put out their five-fingered leaves and are giving us a nice taste of the dappled sunlight that will reach us once all the leaves are out.  It's a slow encroachment, but day by day, tree by tree, our house will become enrobed by an array of green finery.

I'm already looking forward to all the baby birds that will be fledging over the next few months.  The Phoebe nest on the side of our house has been attended by a very devoted mother for the last few weeks.  Any day now I expect to start hearing some peeps from that nest.  A pair of Starlings have built themselves a nest in a roost box we put up years ago, an avian dwelling that so far as we can tell no one has ever used since we installed it.  A pair of Bluebirds has occupied one of the 3 nest boxes across the road, and there were 4 eggs in it at last count. 



Male Bluebird with a fresh lunchtime delivery for babies, May 7, 2006
 And I finally caught sight of a pair of Mourning Doves getting a quickie in Sunday afternoon.  They've been flying about and sitting on branches as pairs for weeks, so I imagined I would catch them in the act at some point.  Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are buzzing about (and quite loudly at that) every day in the woods - I can only hope for a glimpse at one of their nests.  And the Brown Thrasher sings boldly every morning and evening from the edge of the woods across the road; his ever-changing pattern of double calls is so intriguing to me.  If I'm lucky, I'll spy one of their nests just at the edge of the shrub line like I did several years ago. 



Brown Thrasher on the nest, April 26, 2007
Oh, and the woodpeckers - mostly Downys, but also Hairys and Red-bellieds - I can't wait to see their little ones come to the suet feeders, just like they do every summer.



Male Downy Woodpecker feeding one fledgling while another waits in the wings, June 11, 2006. The fledglings crack me up when they perch right on the suet feeder and beg and beg, refusing to feed themselves, which is what's happening here.
Of course, in addition to hoping to catch a glimpse of some nests or young birds, I'm just enjoying the sound of migrants and summer residents as they make their way north for the warm months. A Hermit Thrush stopped me in my tracks one morning as I was getting ready for work. I've never heard one of them on our property before, and, sadly, I haven't heard it since that morning. I anxiously await the return of its cousin, the Wood Thrush. Over the weekend I heard the White-eyed Vireo talking about pick up the beer tab, chick, and a Blue-winged Warbler put its fingers up to its ears, waggled them around, inhaled loudly, and made a big raspberry noise (that's just what their beee-buzzz voicing sounds like to me).

Once the birds start to migrate in and the woods start to explode, the phrase "I'm going for a walk in the woods," has to be taken rather loosely. It's not so much a walk as a dawdle, but the dawdle has a purpose. For example, I may end up backtracking 50 feet because I'm trying to find a bird that keeps flying away. Or I MUST stop to look at every different wildflower, checking it against the catalog in my brain - "Ooh, I don't know this one. I'll have to look it up when I get back to the house." But who knows how long it will be before I get back to the house. When the weather is good, everything about the outdoors begs to be soaked in through every available sense.  Oh how I wish I could spend all day, every day, out and about, observing and noticing. Sigh.

Thinking spring

Spring is settling in here quite nicely as we march on toward May. Perhaps a little too nicely, I had feared. The numbers registering on the thermometer have risen to summer-like levels on more than one occasion, making me wonder if we're just going to skip over spring entirely. That happened a few years back. This past weekend came to us with highs in the upper 50's, though, so I guess spring still has a bit of a hold on us, and we surely haven't said good-bye to nighttime frost yet.  That just wouldn't be right.



Right now we are in "The Season of Explosion." One day you go out and don't see much. The next day you go out and -POOF-! There's suddenly so much color. And the next day -POOF!- again, more color. It just keeps going and going. We'll reach a saturation point eventually, but for now, I'm enjoying the explosions and the prospect of new beauty every day.

While beauty abounds, this time of year does have its challenges.  Even  the process of planting flowers can take on a life all its own.  All it takes is one new or unfamiliar bird sound to make me drop my spade and forget all about the planting.  My attention shifts entirely to craning my neck and locating the bird in question.  Even though the trees are only just barely leafed out, birds that like to flit about high in the tippy-tops of the trees are still a challenge to find.  At least I'm finally learning to bring my binoculars out with me when I step outside, because I know I will need them.

The Buckeye trees, of which we have many on our property, have already put out their five-fingered leaves and are giving us a nice taste of the dappled sunlight that will reach us once all the leaves are out.  It's a slow encroachment, but day by day, tree by tree, our house will become enrobed by an array of green finery.

I'm already looking forward to all the baby birds that will be fledging over the next few months.  The Phoebe nest on the side of our house has been attended by a very devoted mother for the last few weeks.  Any day now I expect to start hearing some peeps from that nest.  A pair of Starlings have built themselves a nest in a roost box we put up years ago, an avian dwelling that so far as we can tell no one has ever used since we installed it.  A pair of Bluebirds has occupied one of the 3 nest boxes across the road, and there were 4 eggs in it at last count. 



Male Bluebird with a fresh lunchtime delivery for babies, May 7, 2006
 And I finally caught sight of a pair of Mourning Doves getting a quickie in Sunday afternoon.  They've been flying about and sitting on branches as pairs for weeks, so I imagined I would catch them in the act at some point.  Blue-gray Gnatcatchers are buzzing about (and quite loudly at that) every day in the woods - I can only hope for a glimpse at one of their nests.  And the Brown Thrasher sings boldly every morning and evening from the edge of the woods across the road; his ever-changing pattern of double calls is so intriguing to me.  If I'm lucky, I'll spy one of their nests just at the edge of the shrub line like I did several years ago. 



Brown Thrasher on the nest, April 26, 2007
Oh, and the woodpeckers - mostly Downys, but also Hairys and Red-bellieds - I can't wait to see their little ones come to the suet feeders, just like they do every summer.



Male Downy Woodpecker feeding one fledgling while another waits in the wings, June 11, 2006. The fledglings crack me up when they perch right on the suet feeder and beg and beg, refusing to feed themselves, which is what's happening here.
Of course, in addition to hoping to catch a glimpse of some nests or young birds, I'm just enjoying the sound of migrants and summer residents as they make their way north for the warm months. A Hermit Thrush stopped me in my tracks one morning as I was getting ready for work. I've never heard one of them on our property before, and, sadly, I haven't heard it since that morning. I anxiously await the return of its cousin, the Wood Thrush. Over the weekend I heard the White-eyed Vireo talking about pick up the beer tab, chick, and a Blue-winged Warbler put its fingers up to its ears, waggled them around, inhaled loudly, and made a big raspberry noise (that's just what their beee-buzzz voicing sounds like to me).

Once the birds start to migrate in and the woods start to explode, the phrase "I'm going for a walk in the woods," has to be taken rather loosely. It's not so much a walk as a dawdle, but the dawdle has a purpose. For example, I may end up backtracking 50 feet because I'm trying to find a bird that keeps flying away. Or I MUST stop to look at every different wildflower, checking it against the catalog in my brain - "Ooh, I don't know this one. I'll have to look it up when I get back to the house." But who knows how long it will be before I get back to the house. When the weather is good, everything about the outdoors begs to be soaked in through every available sense.  Oh how I wish I could spend all day, every day, out and about, observing and noticing. Sigh.

 NESTING UPDATE:  Since I first started drafting this post, the Phoebe nest has sprung to life.  We noticed mama bringing insects to the nest for the first time Monday evening.  So far I've only been able to make out 2 little gaping beaks, but it's still a little early to tell for sure how many young ones are actually in there.  Also, the Bluebird egg count has risen to 5 and incubation has begun (I flushed mama from the nest when I checked the nest yesterday).

Early spring blooms

The early spring-blooming perennials have been brightening our days for a few weeks now - crocuses, daffodils, and now the hyacinths are opening up.  Forsythia and tulips won't be far behind.  Dandelions are already showing their tufted yellow manes, and I'm pretty sure I've even seen dandelion fuzz flying through the air already!  That's one plant that doesn't waste any time going to seed (much to the dismay of those who like to keep a manicured lawn).  It's at this time of year that I tend to shift my focus from birds to flowers.  It's only natural - as the trees begin to leaf out, it becomes harder to see the birds perched within the canopy, so why not look down at something that's not going to fly away on a dime?

There are two early-blooming wildflowers that I have noticed already on our property:  Coltsfolt and Rue Anemone.  I'm sure there are more, but these are the only two I have spotted so far with minimal observation.


Don't count on this photo to help you identify Coltsfoot. I haven't captured any images of them with the flowers fully opened, unfortunately. They could be easily mistaken for the dandelion at a quick glance, but the flowers are quite a bit smaller, and there are brown markings on the stem that dandies don't have. Also, the stems are leafless until after the flower has set seed. The leaves resemble a colt's foot, thus the common name. Coltsfoot is a common medicinal herb used to soothe upper respiratory ailments such as coughs, asthma, and bronchitis, but recent studies have detected a compound in the plant which can lead to liver damage, so it should be used sparingly.


Rue Anemone was my most recent floral find. This is a first for the property as far as my findings are concerned. I could have easily overlooked it, which I have obviously done in past springs. It's quite a dainty plant, and I found it growing behind our abandoned compost bin just above the creek.




I love all the little blooms that are still so tiny, just waiting to burst forth. I took these photos between rain showers today, which made for all these lovely water droplets caught on the leaves and petals.



What's blooming in your neck of the woods?

New season, new header images

Some of you may have noticed that the photos in my header have changed. I like to keep the pictures seasonal, so I have swapped out the winter-themed photos for spring-like images.

This is on the Ohio University campus

This is at Lake Logan (one of my submissions in last year's Shoot the Hills photo competition)

This is an artsy-ish version of Cherry tree blossoms (this photo was featured in my credit union's monthly newsletter last spring).

This is a very close crop of some crocus petals, with a canvas texture added during post processing.

This is the Pine Warbler that stumped me at the feeders last spring. Haven't seen him this year.

If you're interested in learning how to showcase randomly rotating header images for your blog, you should check out the website/blog Tips for New Bloggers. That's where I got my code from. There are probably other variations on the same theme out there, but I found some other helpful stuff on that site, so that's why I recommend it.

What kind of "code hacks," if any, do you use on your blog?