World Bird Wednesday LXXI

The Road to Nowhere

"The answer is blowing in the wind."

                                   Bob Dylan

    After the summer weather of the last couple of weeks the recent drop in temperature has put the kibosh on the migration. I traveled out to Tawas Point, a tiny peninsula on the North West end of Saginaw Bay, being dead sure I would see some spectacular sights there. The wind whipped around me as I trudged the shoreline and except for a colony of ring billed gulls the skies were quiet.
    Gasoline is expensive by American standards right at the moment, any field trip comes with a hefty price tag. My photographic strategy used to be taking advantage of my trips to Detroit to visit birding hot-spots between here and there combining work and pleasure in the process. I don't think I appreciated fully the variety of habitats that conveniently played out before me during this commute.
    One would naturally think more spare time would equal more chances, that retirement would be a boon to the cause, quite the opposite is the case. I am thinking of taking some mini trips with my little pop-up camper and staying overnight at some of my more distant haunts to maximize time in the field.
    It is still only March I tell myself, relax, but I am anxious to retool my life. As a leaf recently detached from its familiar place on the limb, I wait to see where I am blown.
    Like gasoline, patients is in short supply around here!

   
    Soon after High School I landed a job working on the assembly line at Chrysler's Lynch Road plant. It occurred to me then that I was driving a car to work to make cars so I could afford a car to go to work to make cars. At that early age I had already owned several. The change over from riding a bike to driving an automobile widened my world dramatically. Besides the Soul music of Motown, Detroit's other gift to the world was a free wheeling independence.
    I am thinking how now I would like to down shift back to my childhood and re-embrace the idea of a bicycle centered approach to transportation. Did you know the bicycle is the cleanest and most efficient form of transportation ever invented? Burning dinosaur bones to get from point A to point B now seems like a stupid indulgence. The dent driving a car makes in ones pocket book and the environment at large is obvious. To use one for short trips into town is ludicrous.
    Remember when you didn't consciously have to make time to exercise? I see these 90 day fitness regimes whipping folks into shape and think about the inevitable slow decline that begins again on day 91.
    Didn't we have something brilliant as kids, when we were self propelled; and being so motivated we were naturally fit? I am ready to test this theory of self-sustaining fitness and pledge to always ride my bike when it will do just as well or better than my car. There I have said it, the first baby step in actually doing it!

    Every good bird photographer knows the first secret to taking great pictures is to have your camera with you at all times. No camera = No picture.
    I bike about five miles into town and in the process roll through some wonderful wetlands. When I saw a used camera back pack at my local hole in the wall camera shop I snapped it up. Problem solved.
    Born to be wild!

"How differently things would be for you if you could fly!"
Spoke the swan passing by.

    This is the home of World Bird Wednesday. A place for bird photographers from around the world to gather and share their photographs and experiences as they pursue Natures most beautiful treasurers, the birds.

    You don't have to be a Bird Watcher or expert photographer to join in, just enjoy sharing what you bring back from your explorations and adventures into nature!

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