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Welcome to the Pine River Review. Our sight is dedicated to our little homestead located along the Pine River tucked inside the Chippewa Nature Center's 1400 Acres of wild in Michigan's lower penninsula. We love to share our pictures, video, comment, and our own homespun music. Step inside our world as we celebrate this beautiful nook!


Tuesday, December 28, 2010

Roadside Raptors WBW VI

Winter in the North, I am coming to understand, means reduced chances for the bird photographer to gather pictures because of the limited daylight hours and the monotonous, dreary cloud cover that blocks the sun so often. The light that animates and injects color into our lenses is in short supply these dismal days but all is not lost to the season. Certainly the bare lacy branches of winter reveal more of a trees crown than we would ever hope to observe in summer. So on my drives to and fro between Detroit and my home on the Pine River I am now taken with keeping a watchful eye on the naked tree tops that boarder the highway looking for birds of prey. My camera lays next to me on the passenger seat  fitted with the ungainly 400mm L ready to shake off its electronically induced trance. There is no telling where on the drive my peripheral vision will pick up the sight of a feathery protrusion and so begin the reckless maneuvers that will bring my little red car to rest on the shoulder of the road in position to aim the lens and breathlessly try to gain focus. 18 wheelers whoosh by at orbital speeds and I rehearse my explanation to the cop that will one day come to assist me as the Canon clicks away at the befuddled bird that generally tolerates my erratic behaviour for about one minute tops before flying off. My friends congratulate me on having found the cure for normal.

Buteo jamaicensis [Eastern Red-tailed Hawk]

In my Red Tailed musings I chanced upon this brilliant Smithsonian site!  

   And now it's time for World Bird Wednesday VI!

This is the home of "World Bird Wednesday." It is a place for bird lovers from around the world to share their photo-blogs and birding experiences. The Blogosphere connects like minded people from around our planet like no other technology can do. World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through noon on Thursday.


You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and beautiful of Earth's residents, the BIRDS!


                                                

Three easy steps!


#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/


#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST through Thursday Noon and submit your blog entry with Linky.


#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!

The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs where you can view their beautiful posts. The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres.

                                                        
                Please in your linky discription give a clue to your location like U.K. or Bolivia.
                And hey, it's okay to link one of your older posts that you worked so hard on.
                              
                                                    Come on, it's your turn!
                 

Friday, December 24, 2010

The Sea of Tranquility


Do you see the four dark craters on the north east section of the moon? Okay, in the center of those four circles is a six sided plateau, just below that feature is the Sea of Tranquility. Humankind first stood there and looked back on the little blue marble we call Earth and saw it floating in space.  Imagine!

This shot taken a few hours before the clouds obscured my eclipse!

Merry Christmas!

Skywatch Friday

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

World Bird Wednesday V

In Defense of the Starling


Sturnus vulgaris

          Oh poor Starling! No one likes you very much. It is said you destroy crops and are responsible for the decline of our beloved native song birds like the the pretty Blue Bird. Such are the charges brought against you! 

"Mortimer!!!"
Your entry into North America was based on a chance turn of phrase from Shakespeare's Henry IV. From 50 pairs released in 1890-91 in the Central Park of New York City by the American Acclimatization Society, who's mission it was to introduce every bird ever mentioned in the legacy of Sir William Shakespeare to the United States, an estimated 200 million Starlings are now living in and enjoying North America. In all his plays, Shakespeare mentions around 600 birds but the Starling only once.   “The king forbade my tongue to speak of Mortimer. But I will find him when he is asleep, and in his ear I’ll holler ‘Mortimer!’ Nay I’ll have a starling shall be taught to speak nothing but Mortimer, and give it to him to keep his anger still in motion." There you have it. The Starlings ability to mimic sounds, even human speech, led Sir William to use the bird as a devise to drive his antihero bonkers. Observed here, in the early winter sunrise, with fresh white tipped feathers, the ends of which will wear off by next summer, one also notes its otherworldly iridescence. Most of the year the Starlings blunt, compact body is dark brown in most light and butt ugly to most human observers. The perceived wisdom that the European Starlings have crossed this continent and displaced native song birds, mimicking their human European counterparts progression across the same land displacing Aboriginal peoples, is now called into some question. Could human related factors such as the loss of habitat and habitat fragmentation actually be the cause of song bird decline and not the Starlings habit of hogging nesting sites? And even as huge flocks descend on crops, are they actually acting as a control on harmful insects and not foraging? I admit such questions are beyond my intellect and the debate rages among wiser observers but I think the questions are worth a fresh look. Please check out http://www.starlingcentral.net/badrap.htm for the in depth defense of this much maligned ugly European!


"He has all of the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."

                                                                                                                Sir Winston Churchill



And Now its Time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of "World Bird Wednesday." It is a place for bird lovers from around the world to share their photo-blogs and birding experiences. The Blogosphere connects like minded people from around our planet like no other technology can do. Our fifth World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through noon on Thursday.




You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and beautiful of Earth's residents, the BIRDS!
 
  
                                                      
 
Three easy steps!


#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST through Thursday Noon and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!


The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs where you can view their beautiful posts. The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres.

                                                                   Come on it's your turn!


Monday, December 20, 2010

Relics



This steam powered relic has been regulated to the status of lawn ornament. Much is missing from this tractor, the smoke stack and flywheel to name two.





     The James Co. out of Fort Atkinson,Wisconsin manufactured weather vanes in cow, horse and chicken shapes in and around the 1900's. I'll bet this one, not being shot up for target practice, would go for better than a Grand.



A true relic taken tonight in preperation of the eclipse!

See more great barns at...

Thursday, December 16, 2010

Motorcity Skyline


Winter has come early and hard this December. You are looking down the frozen Detroit river, the border between Windsor, Ontario and Detroit, Michigan. A lot of good Canadian whiskey bottled right over there on your left was whisked across the river to service the black market drinkers during prohibition era America. We had a little problem called the war of 1812 as well, when this natural highway became a shared boarder between England and the USA like it was before the war of 1812. The native Americans eventually got the Casinos that dot the landscape. Its been a  peaceful international border ever since!


             Skywatch Friday

Tuesday, December 14, 2010

World Bird Wednesday IV


                       Welcome to World Bird Wednesday



   When you only have a moment to take in the characteristics of a bird it is easy for the new birder to make inadvertant misidentifacations. Such was the case when this hawk landed in the tree next to the high bank.
  "A Red Tailed Hawk," I announced authoritativly. Wrong.
One picture can be worth a thousand foggy recolections and in this case the eventual verdict was a Broad-Winged Hawk (Buteo platypterus). When viewed with a recent picture of a Red-Tailed Hawk, seen below, it's easy to see the obvious difference in the breast feathers which was our main clue.
Broad-Winged hawks enjoy their summers in Michigan an elsewhere in North America than migrate to Northern South America, about a 4,300 mile jaunt, to winter over. Once at their wintering grounds the Broad-Winged hawk keeps about a one square mile home range. They love to rid the forest of small rodents perched aloft as this one is before diving in to take their prey.
   So be on guard young birders, mind your breast feathers or you too shall speak to hastily!

P.S. It seems there is some question that this may be a Red-shouldered Hawk. Did I speak to hastily again?
Bonus shot!


                                                           The Red-Tailed Hawk

             And now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

This is the home of "World Bird Wednesday." It is a place for bird lovers from around the world to share their photo-blogs and birding experiences. The Blogosphere connects like minded people from around our planet like no other technology can do. Our fourth World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through noon on Thursday.

You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and beautiful of Earth's residents, the BIRDS!

                                                      

Three easy steps!


#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST through Thursday Noon and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in during the course of the next day and explore these excellent photoblogs!


The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs where you can view their beautiful posts. The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres.
                                                          Come on it's your turn!

Monday, December 13, 2010

An Amish Barn


The Amish came to Michigan in the late 1800's when the peninsula had been freshly deforested and large tracts of stump filled land was being sold at fire sale prices. Amish folk took advantage of the opportunity and moved from enclaves in Indiana and began the arduous task of preparing the land for farming.



Windmill power is used to pump water from their well for use in tending livestock and household chores.
The lack of power lines strung to and fro takes a little time for an Englisher to adjust to.



There are many misconceptions about the Amish way of life. I have found this site useful in getting an overview of the Amish experience in America..



There is a nostalgic feeling associated with a scene such as this. Just a hundred years ago there was no essential difference between the way our own rural farming Grandparents and the Amish of today achieve their livelihoods.  To me, it is very much like looking backwards through time and I imagine my Father riding the plow horse to school with his little sister in tow at the long ago family farm in Nebraska.

"Adopt the pace of nature; her secret is patience."

Amish proverb


Visit more great barns at

Saturday, December 11, 2010

The Raptors Conundrum



What am I to do. As a freshman nature photographer I am puzzled by a thorny conundrum. I am surrounded by woods, farmlands, and rivers that flow into the worlds greatest fresh water lakes. I am blessed with photorgasmic opportunity. However, in my neck of the woods, there are two small lakes, reservoirs really, that are the property of Dow Chemical Company. They are protected by a ten foot fence topped with barbed wire. The inside parimeter is a flat gravel road that gives way to a bald shore. Way across the water is a world renowned chemical manufacturing and research facility. It is a massive tangle of pipes, smokestacks, holding tanks, and nameless brown brick buildings. It scares me. Trouble is, as I trudge the secret places looking for snaps and finding none, I know where I can go. I can go to those damn reservoirs and see a brilliant collection of wild birds and the most entrancing of these for me are the raptors.

                                   
Two monster Ospreys use this Poplar tree as a launching pad for their fishing forays into the industrial reservoirs. Yes, I wish there were mountains in the background and so the question begs to be answered, "Is a picture of an Osprey taken by a wilderness lake surrounded by trees more legitimate than one encircled in chain link and barbed wire?"                  


This Red Tailed Hawk is gazing at the ducks and gulls that crowd the nameless reservoirs. I tell myself, when I'm visiting the site, that I am paying my dues, learning to control my emotions by letting my fumbling fingers experience the rush of having a bird such as this within reach of my 400mm lens. But is it wildlife photography? And while we're talking about it what's with the "so called" Wild Life? Why don't these icons hang around scenic places that are more in tune with REAL nature? It's like they say,"If you want a Bear picture go to the dump, if you want a picture of a drunk go to the bar!" 
When I first moved to the Pine River, Nature introduced herself to me and I began to understand the diversity that She seems to prefer. More better birds! I was told in those heady days that Eagles were beginning to make there way back into our slowly healing ecosystem and I watched it happen.  One day, way up in the blue sky, a white dot followed by a brown dot followed by a white dot when viewed through binoculars turned into a Bald Eagle! I was ecstatic. Now the excitement is muddled by the nagging conundrums. Are these birds traitors to a higher calling? Or are they pawns?  Am I complicit in this treachery by aiming my lens at them and not the smokestacks? IS MAN NATURE? Or is Man Natures war on itself?


                                            
Oh yeah, Big Daddy Bald Eagle hangs out at Dow too. This is what stings.
"Et tu Brute? Then die Caesar"
   It is useless for me to struggle in the arms of so beautiful a lover, and I hardly feel the blade as it pierces my heart.
       I fear, though, that industry will coop a picture of this Eagle soaring over the smokestacks and let the image shout, "We, the wild creatures have though it over and we want in the house! We will purchase our nests instead of building them for ourselves and we will buy our fish by the pound wrapped in newsprint."
And where am I in this bargain? I walk the barbed wire fence between freedom and surrender. Occasionally I sneak down the forbidden roads, when the sun is setting with perfect light, to get a few hurried chances before the corporate police spot me trespassing and hustle over in their funny uniforms to throw me out. Then I go home, where the Pine River flows with a simple predictability and look at the pretty pixels that industrial technology has made so reasonably priced that even a fool like me might dabble in this forgery.
With a cold chill it dawns on me, that like the Raptors, I am just another tool in their corporate shed.   

               


              

                       "And the first rude sketch the world had seen was a joy to his mighty heart,
                        till the Devil whispered behind the leaves,"It's pretty, but is it Art?"
                                                               Rudyard Kipling

           

Friday, December 10, 2010

Simple Reflections


        
                        Sometimes the reflections are real and not the product of smoke and mirrors. These Tufted Titmice posed perfectly while I gratefully clicked away. I really didn't think much about it at the time but when I looked at the days catch that evening I knew these were destined to be a Reflections post.






       There is ice on the ponds and the migrators that have hesitated to leave town must learn to ice skate. I had a jolly morning watching a gang of Swans slowly break out the thin ice of their pond in what I imagine is a time honored technique, namely, walk around till you fall in.

Tuesday, December 7, 2010

World Bird Wednesday III


Welcome to World Bird Wednesday!


  The weather in The Mitten has grown frigid and there are ice flows on the Pine River. Birds and humans alike are trying to cope with the sudden temperature change as best they can.  The Cedar Waxwing (Bombycilla cedrorum) is a fruit eater and will seek these food sources even when they're coated in ice!                                       The House Finch (Carpodacus mexicanus) knows that he must forage nearly non stop to cope with the demands of heating his less than one ounce body. Another berry lover, his pigmentation is derived from the color of fruit he consumes I discovered this week. I know he devours the seeds at my feeders. Apparently yellow versions of the House Finch have been noted though I haven't been lucky enough to ever spot one. These are frosty scenes I've shared but fortunately for me it is World Bird Wednesday and I'm sure to visit warmer climates. I hope things are warm where you and yours are minding yourselves and that luck is providing you with tons of magically lit and perfectly composed pictures this December!
Happy World Bird Wednesday,    
                                                              Springman

World Bird Wednesday

This is the home of "World Bird Wednesday." It is a place for bird lovers from around the world to share their photo-blogs. The Blogosphere connects like minded people from around our planet like no other technology can do. Our third World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through noon on Thursday. It would be most helpful, though not required, if you would identify your capture by it's common name and/or Latin name.

You are invited to link your blog with other bird photographers in a weekly celebration of these most diverse and beautiful of Earth's residents, the BIRDS!
                                     


                                                     

Three easy steps!

#1. Simply copy the above picture onto your W.B.W. blog entry. It contains a link for your readers to share in WBW. Or you can copy this link on to your blog page to share W.B.W. http://pineriverreview.blogspot.com/

#2. Come to The Pine River Review on Tuesday Noon EST through Thursday Noon and submit your blog entry with Linky.

#3. Check back in the course of the next day and explore these excellent sites!


The thumbnails below are links to our contributors blogs where you can view their beautiful posts. The idea of a meme is that you will visit each others blogs and perhaps leave a comment to encourage your compadres!


                                                         Come on it's your turn!

Monday, December 6, 2010

Stone Homes and Barns

Greetings Old Barn People. I was excited to contribute last week to a meme whose theme is based on the architecture of the family farm era of American rural society. I knew almost nothing about this topic but after living in Detroit for 52 years I moved North into the middle mitten region of Michigan and now I am surrounded by it.  This Old Barns meme is a godsend because barns are everywhere around here. If you take your camera out for a ride in any county mid-state to shoot landscapes, it's very difficult not to include a really cool looking barn in the frame. Not only that, this area of Michigan has mind blowing examples of field stone homes and barns! Add our beautiful Amish homesteads to the mix if that's still not enough to contemplate. So, all this to say,  that while I have a lot of pictures, I do not have a lot of knowledge. I plan to be a regular here because I think it is a grassroots way to document a great era. I will have fun learning from you as I go along.
Okay! I can't wait to get started!


This is a field stone barn picture taken this year. I posted another side of this gem in Falling For You.



                                               This is a cropped section of the same picture.



         I just shake my head in amazement when I see what can be if the money's there to keep the place up.







I did use the phrase "mind blowing" at the beginning of this post when I vainly bragged on Michigan's field stone buildings so I'd better come through. I will post a couple more of this next house in the near future.



                  For goodness sake, double click to enlarge this picture for captivating detail.

P.S.  For Michiganders or for visitors to the Great Lakes State check out The Western Michigan Weekly for information on out of the way, totally fun Michigan hot spots. Hey! They give away a free weekend almost every week for people that stop in! Hint: Ask for their light house poster!

One more thing please, stop back here tomorrow and check out  !!!!!


And for even more great barns visit the home of our new best friend, 
the wonderful "Old Barns" meme at http://www.bluffareadaily.blogspot.com/

Friday, December 3, 2010

Weekend Reflections -Maritime Reflections



Heat reflections from the morning sun turns the Maritime Trader into a ghostly presence. Taken from the northernmost point of Belle Isle looking up into Lake St. Clair where Great Lakes waters bottle neck before jetting through the Detroit River.

Hey all you Michiganders check out out this great blog http://westmichiganweekly.blogspot.com/ they give away a ton of free Michigan getaways every week! If you wanna know you gotta go!


Thursday, December 2, 2010

Skywatch Friday III






Better late than never, I am belatedly adding a couple notes. This is Lake St. Clair. Over yonder is Canada. All the water from Lakes Michigan, Huron, and Superior flows through this shallow lake along with Great Lakes shipping and millions of birds. It is what I would describe as a natural world treasure just by its function as a life giving force alone.
.Happy Skywatch Friday! And check out World Bird Wednesday while your in for a visit.

                Skywatch Friday

A Thursday Daydream

December 1st and the first snow arrived here at the Pine River. It's like a switch has been flipped and it is officially cold. Just a quick post today with a few small bird in flight attempts starring the Tufted Titmouse, a Killdeer and my own personal friend Mr. Red Bellied Woodpecker who is a regular at my feeders.


The Blue Jay and Cardinal bird in flight pictures, that I hope are coming, still elude me. In this dim light I am using a 200mm f2.8L lens and as you can see it is still a struggle to get the speed and depth of focus that I need. How does that bench work out in the composition? I wonder.






                                        Here's my buddy jumping down out of a Cherry tree.



World Bird Wednesday was off the hook. It is truly a world wide event and the links are still up and active for your enjoyment. They are absorbing.                                                                           
                                                                          Peace out!     
                                                                                       Springman