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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, May 29, 2012

World Bird Wednesday LXXX




Compose Yourself

     I chanced upon this Black Crowned Night heron speckled with fluff from the neighboring cottonwood trees. Obviously annoyed with the situation, the stately bird flexed it's smooth plumage and efficiently cast off the debris. In another moment composure returned and the sleek outline of the heron was once again intact.
     It is a remarkable experience to take to the fields, forests, and wetlands in search of bird life, never really sure at the onset what wonders we might see. Yet we go anyway.
     Do we observe in the beasts of the air, in their habits and peculiarities, something of ourselves reflected there? Perhaps we see in these animals traits we would wish for; patients, courage, agility, steadfastness, and of course beauty.
     How we bloggers assemble our pictures and stories reveals a great deal about us personally. In this artistic sense, we are composing ourselves into our works.
     Fate has given us all a different frame of reference, a unique way of looking at things. On one hand we share a uncommon love for birds and photography, on the other, we bring a lifetime of interesting personal experiences to the mix. Your singular vision in concert with others is what makes the weekly trek around this planet we call WBW such an exceptional adventure.
     Thank you for sharing!
  


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!




#1Simply 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/


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


#3Check 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 compatriots!

Come on it's your turn!

Tuesday, May 22, 2012

World Bird Wednesday LXXIX


Sharing the Solitude


The Red-knot in flight.

    Suzanne and I made a bold move and lashed our kayaks to the top of our ancient pop-up camper and headed out for a romantic weekend at the Tawas Birding Festival. This was our first experience participating in such a event. The town of Tawas, located on the North East tip of Saginaw Bay was ready to welcome the crowds of quirky bird watchers. "Welcome Birders" was emblazoned on every business window and sign. It felt nice to be wanted.
    This is a tourist town noted for a massive sand bar that curls like a witches finger out into the blue waters of Lake Huron. A picturesque light house marks Tawas Point, one of the last nesting sites of the endangered Great Lakes population of Piping plovers. Just a few miles inland the breeding grounds of the Kirtland warbler, another extremely rare bird native only to a tiny portion of the Jack Pine forests of mid-mitten Michigan, beckons the faithful. Marshes abound as well, giving ample opportunity to search out a vast variety of winged creatures that fly over and through this legendary region.




The Piping plover with its many colored survival bracelets.



A Red-start emerged from the thicket for a meet and greet.




The Baltimore oriole is intensely colored and draws appreciative crowds.

“All conservation of wildness is self-defeating, for to cherish we must see and fondle, and when enough have seen and fondled, there is no wilderness left to cherish.” 
                                                                                                                  Aldo Leopold

 


     How strange it was to walk among the murmuring throngs of bird lovers with massive 500mm lenses slung around their necks. Here the rumor of a Indigo bunting caused a near stampede.
    Isn't bird photography at it's heart a solitary recreation? The herd mentality that makes sense in Disney World seems misapplied here. Is there such a thing as a wilderness around here anymore? Are these natural hot-spots so rare, and the appetite of the public so acute that we are willing to cue up for a chance to experience them? When does a natural attraction become a zoo?
    I get the same strange feeling when I see a Piping Plover with four neon bands around it's legs. It is odd logic that this endangered bird must be captured and decorated so often to help it remain viable in the wild.
    The fashionable plovers look like they might be as comfortable running from store to store at the mall as on our sandy shores.
    It's not that I don't understand the great work at hand here but the sheer simplicity of the experience of bird watching and photography is somewhat lost in a crowd.
    Still, it is good to know the passion for our bird life is being shared so widely. The impact this kind of popular attention makes on the local political and financial power brokers should mean greater efforts will be taken to protect these awesome treasures.
    Either that or they'll build a amusement park.
   


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!




#1Simply 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/


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


#3Check 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 compatriots!

Come on it's your turn!

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

World Bird Wednesday LXXVIII


Welcome To My World


    It was a wild day of bird photography.
    I had received a call from my buddy Bob about an eagles nest near his home in the thumb area of Michigan. He hadn't seen it himself of course, but his friend had given him rough directions to the location. Bob's enthusiastic description of the nest did not suffer for dramatic detail.
   "Dave, it looks like a bathtub up in the top of the tree and baby eagles are standing on the edge of the nest!"
   He was skillfully pushing all of my hot buttons so off I went, my minds eye filling in all the details Bob may have missed. After an hours drive on a bright morning, I made a right at the restaurant, went two miles more to a freshly paved road, made another right, than further to the second curve. I was there, but where was the nest? Slowly I made my way up and down the road scanning the tree line that skirted the river and way off, about a thousand yards across a freshly plowed field, was the rumored nest. There was also that agonizing sign we all know so well, Private Property-No Trespassing.
   I hatched a plan. There was a slice of public land up stream that provided access to the river. Would it be possible to walk the river edge and gain a decent vantage point? I found a deer trail through the brush down the high bank and with camera in hand I trudged off, carefully calculating every foot fall. Four steps down, disaster struck. My feet went out from under me and I was instantly sliding down the slick incline feet first, my camera held high. It was a fast thirty foot trip to the rivers edge my bottom frosted thick with mud like a good chocolate cake. The lack of friction and the power of gravity notwithstanding, my heals caught the rocky edge and saved me from a dunking. The river was deep and cold, the clay bottom treacherous. This was a stupid plan, there was no walking this river. I scuttled back to my car, a muddy frustrated mess, clutching bushes in one hand for support and the unscathed camera in the other.


    My next plan involved a hike through the woods on the opposite side of the river. I found a private campground that I thought wouldn't be to far from the nest site and the folks there gave me permission to walk their property and that of the adjoining hunt club. Off I went again.
     A long hour later I emerged from the woods and onto a country road my legs scratched and itching from a thousand tiny scrapes with the local plant life. I had seen the nest tantalizing close, just around next river bend but here again I was blocked by more farms and no trespassing signs.
    What did I have to lose? I walked up the long driveway to an immaculate farmhouse imagining how my muddy clothes looked hung on a sun burnt, bleeding body. An elderly lady came to the door and I began to explain my plight, soon her husband joined us.
    What would you have done if you were a couple of old timers confronted with such a person?
    Yeah, I'm from Detroit. I would have straightened my back and Ma would have gone for the gun and called the law in one swift motion.
    What they did was; hobble out to the barn, (Pa was recovering from a less than satisfactory hip operation), get a electrically driven two seater cart and drive my ragged butt back to the eagles nest that hid deep on their property.
    The Sun was to high and bright for bird photography, though the adult eagles swung through the air magnificently just overhead.
    Pa left me to enjoy the ambiance alone. I took a number of shots, moved position, and clicked some more. I could see no fledglings. In the frenzy I reached for my glasses to check exposure. They were gone! Good grief. I looked for an hour over the rough riverbank with that sinking certainty that the search would be in vain. I walked back to the farm house to check the four wheeler. Nothing there. After walking the property yet again, my head bent down scanning the ground for eyeglass frames and not into the sky for eagles, I gave up. Pa volunteered to give my a lift back to my car, Ma asked me if I'd checked my pockets in that sweet condescending way.
   "Yes, a hundred times."
   I was wearing camo cargo shorts with a hundred pockets and I patted them all to illustrate how diligently I had searched. My hand stopped suddenly on a little side pocket... oh my goodness. I reached in and pulled out my glasses. Pa thought this was the funniest thing he had ever seen. He put his eighty-five year old arm around my shoulder and with a hearty, sympathetic laugh said, "See Son? The mind does go first." And then he added,
   "Welcome to my world!"



    Taking leave of my new friends I drove North to Fish Point Reserve and low and behold, there amongst the reeds was a rare sight for Michigan, a White-faced Ibis. A perfect sun shown on a patient subject. I basicly rolled down the car window and started shooting. No blood, sweat, or tears involved.
    A grand end to a wild day!




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!




#1Simply 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/


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

#3Check 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 compatriots!

Come on it's your turn!

Tuesday, May 8, 2012

World Bird Wednesday LXXVII


It Seemed Like Such a Nice Little Bird



     All of my bird photography this last week has been of the backyard yard variety. No matter. Miss Suzanne and my buddy Joe the Bird Whistler were up visiting over the weekend and with those two nature lovers in the house the combined aura was sure to attract the new and unusual to my Pine River digs.
    Suzanne and I have a lovely daughter who thoughtfully presented me with a birdhouse last Christmas. It has been hanging on a shepherd's hook next to the high bank along the riverside. This weekend we noticed a commotion in and around it's confines and after a quick flip through the field guide I learned that we had a pair of House wrens (Troglodytes aedon),  setting up housekeeping.
    Thunder showers and leaden skies have been the order of the week and I have sought birds that would sit still and frequent regular perches. My ISO stayed locked on 400 and shutter speeds hung in there around 1/250 seconds at best. In these dismal conditions we could not have picked a more entertaining pair of birds to study. Every twig and stick flown in to begin the nest building ritual was accompanied by a remarkably loud and melodic virtuosity. For a "little brown job" the House wren's bustling energy and charming sing song performances easily trumped May's other early arrivals even with their flashier neon plumage.
    We welcomed the little devil into our hearts. 




    Observe please the unspectacular profile of the wren. Once upon a time, back a hundred years, people built specialised bird houses to attract wrens into close quarters with their homes, such was the power of it's enchanting song. It's vigorous nature and voracious appetite for annoying insects endeared it to humankind and the House wren became family. Wrens flourished in our domestic shadow.
    Until, that is... it was observed, for all it's winning ways, the wren harbored a wicked secret. Away from the admirable nest building and romantic crooning it was discovered sneaking into the nurseries of other cavity nesting song birds, such as the beloved Bluebird, and piercing the unprotected eggs fatally with its needle like beak.
    Ornithological journals of the 1920's are lit up with the passionate debate; in good conscience could the House wren still be given special treatment now that its murderous ways had been revealed? Should their lovingly constructed nest boxes be dismantled on moral grounds? Would their lovely song be as enjoyable knowing its dark side?
    Some argued the wrens good qualities gave it special dispensation and, after all, this tendency to murder the young of others as they slept egg bound wasn't likely to disrupt the natural order in any meaningful way.
    Others suggested that to follow natures indiscretions with a moral compass calibrated to human sensibilities was ludicrous. This, in their mind, was a behavior to be admired in a undersized competitor fighting for it's very survival in a dog eat dog world.
    Regardless, the House wrens reputation took a hard blow to the chin.




    It is hard sometimes on these pages to get a good perspective on the relative size of our perching birds. To help, I placed a penny on a stick often used by my resident pair of House wrens and waited for a landing.
    Weight? The hard working adult wren can tip the scales at around 12 grams, just shy of four cents worth. (3.1 grams per one pre-1982 copper penny)
    In contrast, a mature Rose-breasted grosbeak weighs in at about 21 cents. You get the picture!

;-)WBW! 



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!





#1Simply 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/


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


#3Check 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 compatriots!


Come on it's your turn!

Tuesday, May 1, 2012

World Bird Wednesday LXXVI




April Showers

    As any bird photographer quickly learns, the ability to quiet one's mind and sit for long periods is a primary advantage in getting those really choice pictures. Of course, it helps to choose your perch wisely. There are so many variables.
    If a guy wants to see pretty girls in bikinis he should go to the beach; but unless he's very patient, he should wait for a sunny summer day. In this admittedly tortured analogy "the beach" is my magnificently bloomed cherry tree and the "pretty girls" are any bird that happens to land gracefully enough to make a good centerfold framed by those beautiful buds. In my mind's eye I could see great things and I was willing to wait patiently for their arrival even if it wasn't the perfect sunny day. The blooms were fading and my window of opportunity was closing fast.
    This cherry tree is a fairly reliable bird magnet in it's own right but just to be sure I parked a seed feeder in a near by tree to amp up the activity and for my own creature comfort, out came my mini chair blind.
    The clouds pressed low in the chilly sky, coco coffee was the drink of the day and I had a big cup with me when I slipped into the chair and pulled the camo' cover over me like a Lady bug shell.
     Thirty minutes later my resolve to "get that picture" emptied with the last lukewarm drop of coffee. Suffering for your art is cool in theory only. I teetered on the slippery edge of sheer boredom when a shadow swept to my left and a Coopers hawk with its fiery eyes lit on a wire by the road. So that's why the song birds had been so quiet!



    It wasn't a minute after Rasputin flew off that a earful of Cedar waxwings landed on the branches before me and began to chow down on cherry blossom petals. Aha! This is what a cocktail of good planning, patients, and luck tastes like! I congratulated myself knowing these birds wouldn't be going anywhere for a good two minutes and I had 'em right where I wanted them. I clicked off a couple of test shots to double check exposure, can't be to careful...wait...what's that on my screen?
   Please change battery!
   Now for the walk of shame back to the house... past the snickering coffee pot to retrive the extra battery and sprint back to the tree. Like a swimmer who's lost his suit in the surf, there was no graceful way out of this jam.
   Cedar waxwings are not easily spooked, would they wait for me and spare the tattered remnants of my self-esteem?



    Thankfully, a couple birds lingered and I chased a few others into my neighbors orchard where the waxwings dined on apple blossoms. Normally serendipity is not to be trifled with and as if to illustrate the point, it turned out only those first few shots before the battery went down were usable. I am all the humbler for it.



    Out on the road yesterday, April showers swept over the flatlands and marshes south of the bay. A good day for fishing if your a Common tern. I hunted for bird pictures more out of reflex than the thought of getting anything as good as his fat minnow.
    The Great egrets have come back to Saginaw Valley's wetlands in mass and along about Five o'clock one held for me as it preened and fished. Unaccountably warm brown tones juiced the edge of the reed bed. I had my header picture in the bag and was happy at the end of this weeks adventures!


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!




#1Simply 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/


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

#3Check 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 compatriots!


Come on it's your turn!