World Bird Wednesday IL

Out of Nowhere

The Green Wall

   It didn't take long for the hardwoods that line the Pine river to shed their leaves and reveal the tangled jumble of naked branches that hide beneath. Gusty winds blew rain storms through the Great Lakes region this week and even the mighty oaks, who usually hold tight to their dead leaves all winter long, had their heads tossed and littered the lawn with a chaos of brown confetti.
   The opposite bank from my riverside home is affectionately known as the Green Wall, an iron curtain of impenetrable vegetation that is quickly losing it's density. Beyond that flood plain is Pine River road and a few other homes that stay hidden all summer long behind the illusion of complete deep woods isolation. Soon I will see lights twinkling out there, a sure sign  there are others who share this boreal forest sancturary.
    My mind was immersed in raking up the leafy fallout and readying it for the mulch pile when I spotted an adult Bald eagle sitting on a rock in the middle of the river a ways down stream. Sprinting into the house I grabbed my camera on the outside chance the bird would hold it's position long enough to pose for a picture. I planned to capture a quick reference shot but as I approached the bank looking for the distant angle the eagle lifted off. Was she teasing me? Time would tell, from my vantage point it looked like the great bird took to a tree further down stream. The chase was on!
   The brush along the river is booby trapped with barbed seed pods that cling to clothing with a devilish Velcro ferocity. Already I resembled a human Chiapet. After an ankle bending hundred yards it was time to stick my neck out and see if the big bird was still in the neighborhood. There it was, perched in a tree and out in the open. I scooted back up the bank and moved further along until a flat opening presented itself. I was trembling, my nerves were juiced with adrenalin and the eagle bounced madly teetering on the long end of the 400mm lens. No way was I going to get a clear shot hand held, not at a decent ISO and the low shutter speed the dreary day called for. Finally I rested the camera on the ground with the lens propped up on my knit cap and turned on the LED display screen. It was exasperating fumbling with this primitive set up before the bird showed in the view finder and held steady aim by way of scrunching my cap in various configurations. I put the shutter on a two second delay and clicked. Blurred. I needed better focus. Increasing the LED's magnification I twisted the focus ring until the magnificent bird sharpened. I clicked again and at the count of two the deed was done.
   Now I got greedy. I had this angle in the bag, could I move to a better vantage point and improve the background? I slithered out of my hide and scrambled through the woods. About fifty yards further down the line there was a little rise by a utility easement. The Bald eagle still clinging to it's branch was now framed by White birch. What I wouldn't have given for my tripod and remote shutter release. The big bird held steady for a couple of nervous shots before taking to wing and just like that, the moment was over.
   I walked home with that triumphant glow every lucky bird photographer has shared, in spite of prickling with the million stubborn burrs clinging to my grimy trousers and shirt.
   What a wonderful world it can be!

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.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

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

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

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

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!

World Bird Wednesday XLVIII

                               

 I Love You Just the Way You Are!

                                                         Little Tiny Feet

If Hollywood had been in charge of designing the Belted Kingfisher, instead of the haphazard bump and grind of evolutionary tectonics, it would sport talons at least on par with a parakeet or sparrow instead of the little tiny feet it has been stuck with. Where's Intelligent Design when you need it? It's not the first time evolution has made mistakes like this. T-Rex jumps immediately to mind with it's dainty fore-limbs to stunted to pick it's own teeth or scratch the back of it's considerable head. Check Godzilla for a sensible T-Rex redo.
  Of course, small feet are considered very desirable by the Geisha's of Japan to the point where they intentionally crunch their toes into ill fitting slippers rather than suffer the stigma of unfashionably out sized clodhoppers. A Geisha would think the kingfishers feet perfectly in proportion to it's size. I would agree to disagree. Besides, the fierce nature of the kingfisher is more in line with a Samaria warrior than a refined lady of culture.
  The Belted kingfisher's blazing airborne attacks, carried out with a acrobatic deftness, defy anything fabricated in Hollywood's computer generated action movies. Indeed, a gritty hero crashing headlong into troubled waters, impaling the woeful with a black saber, and flying off to beat the day lights out of it's stunned victim on a rock, could more or less pass for a movie plot these days.
 


Hitchcock may have had a brutal undertone submerged in his story lines but his implied violence was in context and not the sole point. Sir Alfred reminds me of another of the kingfishers design flaws. Yes, their immense heads. Here's Hollywood's master plan for a more telegenic kingfisher: Shrink the head, enlarge the feet, lengthen the tail feathers, give the eyes a red glare, and chrome the beak! Yeah, that's what we'd see, another doped up Tinseltown remake: Revenge of the Kingfisher!

  Naturally, I jest. My impertinent discontent can be traced to the research into the Belted kingfisher's clan that I did this week. My knowledge concerning ornithology has holes in it the size of Utah and I dare not write about birds without a back up source more authoritative than my own memory.
  So it was that I cast my Enet for factoids about the Belted kingfisher, lesser cousin of the vaunted Kookaburra, greatest of all kingfishers. Imagine my surprise when I stumbled upon an informative article that commented on the ninety different varieties of kingfisher our world has to offer. Was I misinformed? Wasn't there only a single version of the kingfisher in all of Europe, the Common, and one native to North America, the Belted? Not quite, there were a few others, for instance the Ringed and Green kingfishers that reside in the American South West, but those are rare enough to be easily overlooked by the casually educated.
  To further hammer down the disparity I then read that only six of the ninety Kingfisher species call the whole of the Western Hemisphere home, while Gambia, an African country of barely 2,400 square miles, claims eight! What an astounding variation in diversity.
  One click led to another and I began to find picture after picture of rare kingfishers gorgeously festooned with a dazzling pallet of colorful plumage's. And that is how my drab, slate colored darlings lost some of their visual appeal and made me long for something more...intense.

  Some species of kingfisher are unbelievably rare and precious. The Kofiau Paradise kingfisher is resident to only one tiny island, Kofiau, off the coast of New Guinea. The tropics of the Eastern Hemisphere spanning Africa, Asia, and Australia are our planets kingfisher treasure trove.
  The world over, these peculiar birds share most of the same general attributes. Those that spring to mind are obvious: long beak, tiny feet, and ill proportioned head. The forest dwelling varieties that dine on insects dug from the earth will sport a stouter bill and feet more useful for standing on Terra Firma. There are mountain and desert versions too. Kingfishers are blessed with acute eyesight although they must turn their heads to direct their line of vision to make up for an inability to move their eyes easily in the socket. Kingfishers are creatures of the air and do not presume to walk on the their tootsies except to scuttle into their nesting burrows.
  The drawing on the immediate left is that of the Common Paradise Kingfisher. Now this is what I'm talking about, fashion and function married in an eye popping explosion of cinematic proportions. Just for a change Hollywood, try bringing back Astaire and Rodgers, we could use a little snappy dialog and sophistication. I rest my rant.

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.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

                                                                                   

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

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

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

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!

World Bird Wednesday XLVII

According to Webster...

Michigan's Indian summer season is in full swing. Our temperatures are reaching into the 80's again! It would behoove me to take advantage of this gift and handle some of the upkeep around the house and barn before old man Winter drops the hammer on us. If there's one thing for sure, it's that this mild weather won't last forever. The temptation however; shuck mundane responsibilities and wander off into the fields and streams to witness the spectacular end of the growing season. Michigan is ablaze with a leafy transcendence. Not every year is so remarkable for it's Autumn color as this one is. Each individual leaf bears a complicated pallet. It is a tradition here to save a few gem quality examples, leaves we simply can not leave behind, and press them forever between the folds of our six inch thick, ninety year old Webster's New World Unabridged Dictionary. Of my possessions, this book with its chiseled covers is the most hotly contested item between my children when they debate the fallout of my inevitable decline. (If you catch my drift.) They finally brought the issue to me for a decision; which of them would inherit the three thousand sheaves of rice paper that constitute its vast knowledge? I so ruled: At Thanksgiving or Christmas, after I am gone, my son and daughter shall play a game of scrabble to determine possession of the hallowed dictionary for the following year. Forevermore. So it is said, so it is written!
 If they'd like to practice for those future battles, their Eighty-nine and one half year old Grandma, reigning champion of the letters, is open for appointments!

What is it about American bitterns, just how reclusive can a bird be? Apparently extremely so. I checked with Saginaw Bay Birding and found that they had only one sighting reported for a bittern all year. I have seen three! The latest example was the bird hidden in a roadside weed bed at Shiawassee Refuge. The bird did not flush and we faced off for a good photo session. My concentration broke when a Night jar cruised in and I fought with my camera to reset the shutter speed for a bird in flight shot. The distraction lasted maybe 20 seconds but when I looked back to regain my vigil, the phantom of the marsh had dematerialised. Crafty devil!

  I hope my revised comment board choice is now more inclusive! I appreciate reading your words of wisdom and truly, all the hard working bloggers that contribute to WBW deserve our kind words.

One of the weakness/strengths of WBW is that our focus is on bird life, a regular contributor, the phenomenal Pat Ulrich has recently been posting pictures of his travels in Yellowstone National Park. Pat's photographs of the great beasts of the American West are a Masters course in nature photography.

  I unabashedly recommend everyone click on Pat Ulrich Photography to enjoy some great eye candy. 

Great days! The migration, I'm happy to report, has arrived in Saginaw Valley!

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

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.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

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

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

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

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!

World Bird Wednesday XLVI

  

 More Then Meets the Eye

Autumn is in full swing along the banks of the Pine River, the birds are massing in great flocks taking advantage of the harvest season to bulk up for the long flights south, temperatures are slipping into the low forties as the night hours lengthen bringing a early end to our apple picking and leaf raking chores. It is a unimaginably golden world we make our way through. The agreement between green leaf and sun to partake in the sacrament known by the awkward word "photosynthisis" is quickly coming to it's fiery conclusion. It would be well if you were with me to see the kalaidiscope of color with your own eyes. My trips into the wetlands are equally as beautiful. I am waiting to see the giant flocks of geese that are even now making there way to Shiawassee refuge. I have never seen a snow goose and if I read the pamphlets correctly that oversight will be corrected a thousand times over very soon. I have had good looks at pairs of trumpeter swans resting in the marsh and flights of Sandhill cranes popping up unexpectedly on the stubble fields, there finding plenty of left overs to keep them happy after our farmers have taken in the crops. Between the blowing leaves, Wild turkey and deer bombing back and forth across the road, along with the ultimate distraction of the spectacular red, orange, and yellow hardwoods I'm having trouble keeping my car in it's own lane. 

    

On the shores of Lake Huron I spied a group of Black-bellied plovers in their non-breeding molt working the shore line. They are powerful fliers capable of scooting along at 50mph even in the face of a strong head wind. Their breeding grounds skirt the rim of the Arctic ocean where the plover may lay 1 to 5 eggs. Remarkably, the newly hatch Black-bellied plovers are able to feed themselves within a days time and are ready to take to the air in about three weeks. These birds are long lived in the wild with life spans in the neighborhood of 20 years. This 11 inch shorebirds halting stutter step as it patrols the beach and its bulbous profile give no hint that in the air it's 27 inch wingspan can support nonstop migratory flights figuring thousands of miles. The inset picture shows the Black-bellied plover in it's more distinctive breeding plumage.

I have been reading recently about the "Market Hunters" that harvested wild game in the 1800's all through North America. There was a huge market for anything from bears to frogs and nearly everything in between that might feed the 76 million hungry mouths that populated turn of the century America. There was no season and no bag limit. The inexpensive meat was iced or salted and sent by rail to the cities where it was sold to the poor or prepared in wild game restaurants. So efficient were the killing methods developed, the disseminated flocks of avian life and throngs of wild beasts nearly vanished in a unthinkable cataclysm. If not for the efforts of naturalists and enlightened hunters in the waining moments of the 19th century much of our glorious native wild life would be nothing more than faded pictures on the pages of century old field guides and hunting magazines. The Migratory Bird Act of 1918 put an end to the slaughter of shorebirds like the plovers. The concept that natures treasurers were finite and belonged to nature and not to man's arrogant consumptive whims was revolutionary. I shudder to think, what if this new mindset had not caught on?

Now it's time for World Bird Wednesday!

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.

World Bird Wednesday will be open for posting at 12 noon Tuesday EST North America through midnight on Wednesday.

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


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

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



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!