End of the Bigby?

With 32 degree precipitation today on what was supposed to be the nicest day remaining this week, I think my Bigby year is over (barring a big surprise at the feeders).  I totaled 227 birds without using gasoline, 123 of them required the bike while the remaining 104 were seen around my house.  Given that I went a little over 1000 miles this year, that's a new bird every 8 miles or so.  Since I averaged about 10 miles an hour on the bike, the math gets pretty ugly quickly in terms of the ratio of time spent birding vs spent on the bike.  From a weather stand point I picked a lousy year to try this given that some parts of Berrien had record snowfall last winter and we had a top-5 all time amount of snow in November (including a single day record).  Considering that 2 years ago it was 40 degrees and snow-free on Christmas and that this year it was a white Thanksgiving, a person could certainly have 4-6 more weeks to really work at it in a year with luckier weather.  I made a total of 54 trips, therefore averaging a little less than 20 miles per trip.  The farthest I went was 66 miles to get down to the south county to pick up southern warblers.  I also made a 52 mile chase early in the year after a staked-out saw-whet owl.  On about half of the trips (22) I saw birds I would only see once, highlighted by my (long-awaited) Michigan lifer piping plover and 4 hurricane blown brown pelicans (also obviously Michigan lifers).

What could be possible?  I've totaled 246 birds this year in Berrien without focusing on year listing when not on the bike.  Therefore there were 19 that I've seen on various big days, chases, and at other random times.  Four of them (evening grosbeak, spotted towhee, northern shrike, and snow goose) were only seen when snow prohibited biking so wouldn't really be possible.  A handful of them (Thayer's gull, Iceland gull, black tern, white-rumped sandpiper, Brewer's blackbird) were found only in the extreme southern part of the county that would have required 50-60 mile trips to find.  I missed some of them by not having time to chase after them with my work schedule or not being able to attempt it until after they were gone (marbled godwit, long-billed dowitcher, worm-eating warbler).  A couple were rather inexplicable/inexcuseable that I missed them (orange-crowned warbler, lesser black-backed gull, and rusty blackbird).  For a few of the birds I just didn't have enough time in the early breeding season to get them while they were most vocal, going after easier birds cost me (virginia rail, least bittern, black-billed cuckoo).  And a couple were just simply transient birds that I saw while not on the bike and would not get another shot at (glaucous-winged gull, magnificent frigatebird, and golden eagle).  It would probably take another 500 miles to tally most of those, or to make up for some of the impossibilities with other birds that would also be possible. SO, I rather doubt I'm going to attempt this again.  A person who lived closer to the lake or specifically a great passerine spot on the lake (like Warren Dunes) would be able to attain these numbers with far less effort.  That being said, as far as I can tell from various reports on the internet, this is one of the higher numbers tallied by someone who works full time and probably the highest for this latitude away from an ocean (though an inland sea doesn't hurt).

Pics today were from the New Buffalo harbor.

1000 miles

Today I hit one of my goals for my Bigby year and somewhere along the way to Tiscornia beach this morning biked mile #1000.  A flyby juvie glaucous gull put me at 227 (other recent additions are cackling goose yesterday close to home - unfortunately found during 45 degree rain so no pics and faithful readers are spared another goose post, and a few purple finches about the yard).  I had somewhat hoped to get to 1200 miles, averaging 100 miles per month, but given that bicycling during the winter months here is dangerous, if not impossible, I don't think that's a goal I'm going to push for.  At this point my goal is to reach 230 which I may be able to accomplish with just 2 (or maybe 3) more rides.  Lesser black-backed gull should start roosting on Lake Chapin in a few weeks (I should probably check that it's not already there) which is about a 20 mile round trip.  Long-tailed duck and Lapland longspur should be at Tiscornia on any given December north winds day.  There's also the chance that I could run into a snow goose or shrike close to home and duck back out after them (that's what happened with the cacklers, and I attempted it with a golden eagle less than a mile from the house that crossed the road and perched in a snag as I drove home a week or so ago, but that had flown by the time I returned 10 minutes later on the bike).  I could also theoretically get motivated to go for long-eared owl should one be teed up in the Sarett pines, but at 30 miles round trip, I don't know if that will happen.  I actually toyed with the idea of trying the 65 mile trip for Franklin's gull down at 3 Oaks, but if there's one thing I've learned chasing birds, it's that gulls are not reliably re-found.  Fortunately I slept through the 4:30 am alarm I'd set this morning.

Today's pics are from the berry trees in the cul-de-sac in front of the house.  Waxwings and robins were swarming, but not being very cooperative about holding still:

someWHERE over the rainbow ...

 ... there probably existed a rare bird. 

Except for the first snow buntings of the fall (and the first for my Bigby year), despite N winds (probably NNE), there seemed to be less movement than the last few times I've been to Tiscornia.  There were actually greater numbers and larger flocks of scaup flying north than south.  We did have probably 100 Bonaparte's gulls, but without the hoped-for black-headed.  We???  Actually there was a fairly rare sighting today, that of the Greater Northern Skunkape, one Tim Baerwald, taking a break from counting waterfowl at Whitefish by watching waterfowl at Tiscornia.  Despite the fact that the last 2 times he's returned to the county he brought, within hours, county-level megas (glaucous-winged gull and Nelson's sharp-tail), it was not to be today.  I will spare you a photograph, and leave you with one last look at the rainbow present this morning (it was a full bow before daybreak as I biked in at pretty close to rarity-chasing speed hoping for dramatic pics).

trash birds?

One of my birding mentors, Don Chalfant, used to tell me an apocryphal anecdote that went something like this.  Two people are walking through a forest.  One is a birder (depending on your perspective, either an un-abashed or a jaded lister), the other is a non-birder.  The non-birder spots 2 identical birds sitting on a branch and asks his friend what they are.  "The first bird," the birder announces with great excitement, "is a boreal owl!"  "The second one is a trash bird."  Yikes.  

Anyway, I made my way back to Tiscornia today.  I've missed some nice N winds because of work and today's winds were wrong, but it was finally a day off so I went anyway.  The greater black-backed gull was standing in basically the identical location it was standing the last time I was there, and a peregrine appeared after about 20 minutes.  There was no waterfowl movement, after about an hour and a half I'd tallied 3 local mallards and one distant common loon.  I made a brief half-hearted attempt at photographing sanderlings (which is when the above peregrine flew back in and landed on the beach), and I headed home after walking the dunes hoping to kick up a LeConte's (just a few songs and white crowned's).

Peregrines

Ahh, the unsettled skies of NW winds in fall...

I made what hopefully will be the first of many trips to Tiscornia this morning with NW winds.  I did not find any passerines over the lake, though waterfowl were moving in small numbers.  Blue-winged teal were the most common with about 30 birds in various flocks, though mallards, pintail, wigeon, and gadwall went by as well.  In terms of divers, my first canvasbacks of the fall joined a few redhead, some various scaup sp., as well as my first red-breasted merganser of the fall (oh joy).  The big flights of RB mergs in November and early December herald the end of the migration season just as the big numbers of redstarts used to signal the curtainfall of spring migration back in my Ann Arbor Nichols Arboretum days.  

As far as my Bigby year goes, I was looking basically for peregrine, merlin, jaegers, or little gull (I think I can kiss black tern goodbye) so spent a lot of time scanning with binoculars for that single solitary hunter.  The first time that the gulls and sanderlings flushed I could not find the source, but on the second time a peregrine appeared right in front of me harassing the gulls.  It would sometimes isolate on one gull from the flock giving tail-chase before getting distracted by a gull on the water and whipping over to dive more or less vertically with spread wings at the bird on the water before swooping back up.  Sometimes this would give a gull an opportunity to chase the smaller falcon right back which it would tolerate for a few seconds before abruptly rising higher or braking for a second and suddenly ending up right behind the gull again.  It was certainly entertaining (though nothing like the acrobatic fireworks that ensue if a jaeger and peregrine come together - THAT is something to see with ripping horizontal zigs and zags between equal masters).   About an hour later a peregrine re-appeared in the dunes behind me and whipped off a mile to the north in hardly any time at all, stopping to harass a Cooper's hawk that was coasting into the winds with barely any ground speed probably awaiting any passerines desperately flying off Lake Michigan.  It then bounced up higher and started interacting with 2 more peregrines!  Probably all 3 were siblings.  For the most part they would slowly rise into the wind coming off the lake, similarly to the Coopers, before one would dive at the other, leading both birds to drop precipitously before rebounding back up in deep U shaped maneuvers ending up in essentially the same positions they started from with barely a wingbeat from either.

The peregrine was a bird I certainly expected to get this year (they tend to hang out at Tiscornia especially on NW wind days in October), but I didn't feel I could expect it as a virtual lock.  The greater black-backed below, however, was one of my remaining birds for the Bigby year that I consider to be a lock but was still missing.  I'm starting to run out of those (orange-crowned warbler and black scoter are the 2 easy birds that I still need, and rusty blackbird is probably in that category as well).

Forest birds, CHECK

I biked out this morning to Grand Mere to look for gray-cheeked thrush, as I think it's the best place to see good numbers of thrushes (I've typically seen a lot more there than at Floral at any rate).  I got there shortly after "sun-up" but given the overcast it was still pretty dark and I spent the first little while birding from the parking lot where there was more light.  There were clearly good numbers of warblers about, though they were difficult to see well, staying mainly in dense canopy.  There was one bare tree that also held them at times, initially I found my first yellow-rumped's of the fall there, as well as my first palm of the fall.  Eventually it brightened enough to give the woods a try, but looking back there was another bird in the bare branches ... the scope revealed a pine warbler!  This was a bird I'd pretty much given up on finding for the Bigby year, I didn't find one in the tiny pine stand below my house this spring like I did last year, the closest nesters I know about are at least 25 or 30 miles from the house which I never gathered the energy to try for, and it's not a bird I encounter very often in fall migration.  The bird in the upper left was the bird I saw initially, a chunky long-tailed warbler greenish-brown in color with dusky wingbars, pale eye crescents, and a vague yellowish wash on the throat extending across the breast.  I worried for a second when 2 other birds appeared next to it; suddenly I was worried they would all be yellow-rumped, however, the lower bird is an even brighter pine warbler and the upper right bird a palm.

This photo is a cut-and-paste job to show all 3 in quasi-identifiable poses.
Continuing into the woods, I did in fact find good numbers of thrushes, mostly Swainson's, but with 2 gray-cheeked and one wood thrush as well.  I nearly got a photo of one of the gray-cheeks but it flew off while I was drawing the camera and watching it through the scope.  I probably saw 20 thrushes, about 60% of which would land it a position where they could be identified.  Also in amongst the leaf litter was an ovenbird, a northern waterthrush, and a couple towhees.  Black-throated blue, black-throated green, nashville, chestnut-sided, and the dullest female magnolia I've ever seen rounded out the warbler roster.  The magnolia was very close in color to what a female parula would typically show, but had the typical shape and magnolia undertail pattern to ID it.

The pine warbler and gray-cheeked (along with a pipit the other day on the Scottdale plains) brought me to a round 220 for the Bigby year, and more significantly pretty much completed the forest birds I could expect (with the exception of orange-crowned warbler and purple finch, both of which I should get in the yard, and black-billed cuckoo which is probably gone), so it'll be Tiscornia, Tiscornia, and more Tiscornia from here!

Playing plover hide-and-seek

I've been spending a fair amount of time the last few days checking the flooded field at Linco and Scottdale.  Two days ago I checked it on the way home from running an errand and picked out a big pale black-bellied plover standing up over wheat stubble that hides a golden plover much easier.  I went straight home, grabbed the bike, decided not to re-fill the water bottles just in case the minute or so that would take was the difference between seeing the bird and having a raptor scare it off, and rode out.  As soon as I got there I could see that there were fewer birds in the stubble.  The first bird I scoped was a pectoral sandpiper hunkered down peering up at the sky (doh!).  I looked up finding about 3 flocks of birds circling about.  Two of them were clearly pectoral class birds with a plover or two with each and one was a flock of 2 dozen plovers and a few pecs.  I focused in on that one thinking that it might actually be easier to find the black-belly with its black axillaries.  It wasn't, I think because it wasn't with that group of birds.  A couple of the birds were bigger with blotchy black bellies, but these were also golden plovers.  I wonder if most of the birds we see in the Michigan are juvies in crisp plumage as before this year (with more goldens than I've ever seen before) I'd never seen one in blotchy plumage but given that all the blotchy ones were bigger I'm guessing that's the case.  The double whammy was that I couldn't find the raptor either; a peregrine or merlin would be a Bigby year bird.

I biked out again yesterday, and fortunately this time, the black-bellied was back though I saw considerably fewer goldens (though they may have been hidden in the wheat stubble).   A kestrel of all things was panicking the killdeer out of various corners of the field though I doubt was much of a threat.  The black-bellied was good enough to flush up and land right in my scope field giving me a good look at the black axillaries.

The main down-side to this flooding is that it's well off the road and photography is very difficult.  The best I can manage of birds there are heat-distorted record pics worthy only of  thumbnail size viewing in my Word document birding journal.  This black-bellied was photographed in Florida this February, it's much more worn than the birds currently are:

This golden plover was at least photographed in Berrien, in mid-September at Tiscornia 2 years ago:
The whitefish point blogs (accessed off www.wpbo.org) have some nice side-by-side shots of the two species.

Hurricane birds

The idea of hurricane-related birds certainly brings exciting thoughts of gulf coast vagrants appearing on the beach or some inland lake.  While the pelicans from earlier in the summer will likely be the most exciting hurricane-related bird I'm going to find for a while, my Bigby list has benefited with some considerably more common species.  I've been lamenting the lack of shorebird habitat for weeks, and the flooding that the remnants of Ike left (about 6-8 inches of rain here over 2 days) suddenly has refurbished the habitat.  

The other day before going to work I discovered the golden plover below at the Anna Lane flooding, about 2 miles from my house.  It was still there after work so I biked out after it, and after a few anxious moments found the bird standing still peering back at me.

On Friday on the way to Floral Lane I biked past Linco and Scottdale when I found Marquette Woods Rd impassable on a bike secondary to water across the road!  I could see in the pre-dawn that there was a decent wet area well-attended by killdeer and knew I'd have to come back the same way.  When I arrived there in the afternoon, another golden plover quickly appeared, this one a moulting adult retaining some of the black belly as well as some black outlines to the face and some gold-spangled back feathers.  The primaries were worn to dull brown.  Scanning back across a pale calidrid ran into view, a juvie stilt sandpiper moulting into winter plumage!  I'd practically given up on finding a stilt sandpiper since they're a relatively early migrant; I'm sure this is the latest I've seen one (though if Pt Mouillee was open in September that might be different).  Suddenly I have hopes of still finding a dowitcher for the Bigby year as well.  White-rumped sandpiper should be much easier if the water holds.  A snipe was present as well, one of a half-dozen easy species that I was still missing (and was starting to worry about).  Pecs, leasts, a Baird's, and some yellowlegs rounded out the shorebirds there.

The stilt sandpiper and snipe brought me to 216 for the Bigby year.

FIlling in the boxes, Part I

Well, last night I decided to shift some of my strategy.  I've been going to Tiscornia a lot lately, however, day after day of S winds make lakewatches less productive.  Moreover, there's only one bird that I have a reasonable chance to get but upon whom the window is closing fast (black tern), whereas in the woods, there's still two (Philadelphia vireo and gray-cheeked thrush).  I had been planning to wait to go back to Floral until NE winds would give a decent hawk push, but I realized that going today would give me my best shot at the two tough passerine migrants, would put me in the peak of the broad-winged migration even without ideal winds for huge numbers, and would allow me a tailwind on the way home.  Between being excited about scoring some birds, and some sleep and food schedule issues I managed all of 3.5 hours of sleep before the alarm went off.

I made it to Floral in pretty good time, having perfected a route earlier in the year that avoids some tough hills though is a couple miles longer than the most direct (and traffic filled) route.  Upon arriving I realized that I was without my bike lock since I'd just gotten my bike back from a tune-up (Doh!).  I decided to hide it in the woods, walking the line between hidden well enough no one would notice it and still making it findable for me.  I took some photos on the camera of the route just in case...

It took some time to start getting into decent numbers of birds, but as fortune would have it, one of the first migrants I found was indeed a refreshingly bright Philadelphia vireo.  No having to agonize over drab birds over-lapping bright fall warbling's for this bird.  The face pattern was crisp, the bill and tail short, and most importantly sported bright yellow at the upper breast at the junction of the breast and throat (bright warbling vireos are usually brightest about the flanks and undertail coverts).  I circled Floral, getting into a few widely dispersed warbler flocks, high-lighted by a few black-throated blues (including my first male of the year) and probably my personal latest northern waterthrush, as well as some nice looks at a few blue-headed vireos.

This "baypoll" is a bay-breasted, you'll have to take my word that in better lighting it showed some pale bay wash about the flanks.  The dark leg color can be helpful as well (I think there's an insect leg protruding from the end of the bill, when it finally swallowed down or brushed it off on the branch it returned to regularly scheduled warbler behaviour (not perching in one place long enough to be digi-scoped)):

By the time I'd made it all the way around I'd tallied 14 species of warbler (as well as winter wren and ruby-crowned kinglets, definitely a sign I'd been none too soon).

I came across this lifer orchid, the first time I've found an orchid that I wasn't already aware was present (and the first of any sort I've seen in Berrien).  I believe this is some flavor of Lady's Tresses.  Perhaps I'll show them to Hazel next year; I think her reaction now would be, 

"I Pick FLOWers DadDEEE!"

I headed off for the campground dune area (but not before finding a juvie white-eyed vireo (so a black-eyed white-eyed vireo)) and finding out that I'd probably not missed a gray-cheeked thrush by more than about 10 minutes as I came in.  This painted lady butterfly was feeding on the remains of what I took to be Joe-pye weed.

When I finally reached the top of the dune I believe is called Mt Edwards (or Cardiac ridge as I like to call it), I didn't have long to wait to start picking up hawks.  There was a steady trickle of birds, first a red-tail trailed by a Coop, then a red-tail trailed by my Bigby year broad-winged (which is the bird pictured below), a few more redtails, a sharpie, and then off to the north the other bird I was seeking, a first year bald eagle which has been reported mainly in the 2nd dune blow-out to the north, but which I expected would get high enough to come into view.  For whatever reason, eagles are not very common at Tiscornia, in fact I've never seen one there.  I was running out of time since I wanted to check some shorebird spots on the way home (more in the next post) so I decided to leave even though there were still birds moving.
You can see in the photo how these birds' moult is carefully timed as well, not haphazard at all as it is re-growing one symmetric secondary on each side and one symmetric tail feather on each side (note the slight wave in the tail band).

Slow progress

I havn't had a whole lot lately of bloggable interest.  I've been trying to find shorebird spots within biking distance of my house but all the ones from last year are either drained or cornfields.  My stops at the AU Dairy have rarely found any shorebirds, to say nothing of uncommon ones.  I've made a few trips to Tiscornia, mainly by car, hoping to get more pics of terns on the beach as I've become suspicious that I've been mis-calling some of the adult terns for going on 3 years now, but the tern flock has been offshore each time I've been there.

This morning I was able to go down below the house in late morning (the work schedule has had a whole lot of 3am endpoints lately making it hard to get up early) and didn't find much in the way of warblers.  I did, however, pick up a Bigby bird, with a flyover osprey, a bird I've been hoping to eventually see cruising down the river.  I saw them somewhat regularly when I fished the river my first summer here, but with 2 kids now, I haven't even gotten a license the last 2 years.  The osprey was #210 for the Bigby year.  At this point I expect to end up with probably mid 220's depending on how the next 6 weeks go and how hard I try at the end of the year to dredge up last ditch birds like northern shrike once it's cold again.  I still have about 6 birds that are basically gimmes and we'll see what Tiscornia brings in terms of the rest.  

The only workable pic I got this morning was this pewee, I was just too slow on a young magnolia that went right to the branch I expected, but was still too late getting set up for a digi-scoped view.

bonus buff-breasted

 arrived at Tiscornia yesterday pretty psyched to find strong NW winds.  The migration seemed hopeful initially as I immediately had a mixed flock of teal fly by.  Dribs and drabs of dabblers continued past through the morning, totalling about 45 each of blue-winged and green-winged teal with considerably fewer shovelors, but that was really the main part of the the movement.  There were no passerines flying in off the lake (and consequently no falcons or jaegers?) perhaps because the NW winds came up to late in the night and didn't blow as many out over the lake from Wisconsin that then struggle in at daybreak to run the gauntlet of various predators and opportunists.

These Forster's terns made a nice study of juvenile and adult plumage.  The adult is moulting into winter plumage, note the white speckling coming into the forehead and the panel of fresh feathers in the wing coverts.  The other point of interest is the darker worn primaries, much darker than the whitish feathers worn in the spring:

There was a little bit of shorebird migration with about 15 or 20 sanderling accumulating on the beach.  Early in the morning I had found a juvie turnstone and later a juvie semi-palmated plover arrived, but it wasn't until I was practically leaving that I found the first good bird of the day: a buff-breasted sandpiper.  I was trying to photograph the turnstone which had walked past me and as I looked back, what should appear but the bright buff-breast of this little fellow.  It moved about much quicker on the sand than they do at the sod farms.  This was probably the 4th one I've ever seen, definitely a nice bonus given that it would probably be a 2 hour ride to the sod farms, one that I'd pretty much decided I wouldn't make, even if a buffy showed up there!  The photo's not the greatest, it was moving around pretty fast but the bright edged juvie coverts and tertials are well appreciated.

"Laboring" on Labor Day

Yesterday I spent 2.5 hours at Tiscornia as part of a coordinated lakewatch on Lake Michigan with observers spread up and down the shoreline at a dozen locations from (I think) Muskegon to New Buffalo, coordinated by Chip Francke.  SE winds meant little movement and the morning was pretty much a dud as far as migration was concerned.

A few more species' juveniles are showing up in greater and greater numbers.  This Forster's Tern was right next to a Bonaparte's gull and the similarities were pretty striking:

I suppose the question would be whether the split between gulls and terns took place between some ancestor in this size and age-maturation class or if this represents convergent evolution to the birds slowly adapting to similar pressures.

A Baird's sandpiper was much more cooperative than the one last week.  This photo gives a sense of their fairly unique flattened-oval body shape when viewed head- or tail-on, an easy way to suspect this species amongst the peeps from a long distance.  Sanderlings, however, are closer to this shape than most of the peeps, so this trait is not as useful on the beach (sanderlings also have longer tertials than their tails, though again, not to quite the degree of a Baird's).

This afternoon I biked out to Brown to finally tally great egret for my Bigby year.  There was one immediately visible as I got off my bike which then ducked behind some loosestrife and cattails giving me momentary panic, but the bird soon re-appeared in the open.  As luck would have it, 2 olive-sided flycatchers appeared as I was waiting for the egret to re-appear.  One flew at the other with a quick-qit-qit scold call that I hadn't heard before.  I managed very poor record pics of both with the digital camera, but not having bothered bringing my scope they aren't very good.  I also re-learned why I have 3 bottles of water on my bike; biking in the midday sun is different from the pre-dawn cool.  Go figure.  SO, in 10 minutes of birding (and 2+ hours of biking) I scored 2 Bigby birds whereas yesterday 2.5 hours of birding tallied none, ah the irony.

NW winds predicted for tomorrow, here's hoping for a big morning at the lakefront...

A blow to Tiscornia University

Well, it may not look like much, but unfortunately this photo documents the destruction of the Tiscornia University winter campus...

While this may look like just an ordinary pallet drifted in from the lake, it is actually the shelter for the University of Tiscornia's Waterbird Survey for when the winds are ripping off the lake in nice northwest gales.  Tim and I discovered it in the dunes last fall and rigged it with such amenities as port holes, a shelf, and a pomarasitic jaeger's sillhouette for a logo.  Unfortunately however, it was re-discovered in the last few weeks and moved from its hiding place into the dunes proper and must have been re-dragged down to the water's edge by unidentified persons not realizing the significance of their actions.  Imagine the shock on the face of one coddled waterfowl counter, used to the comforts of his plexiglass outhouse staked down to the rarity-filled shores of Whitefish Point, when he discovers our modest quarter-hut gone upon his return to humble Berrien.  Ah well.

In Bigby news, I at least tallied a Baird's sandpiper though had to walk even north of Jean Kloch to get it since the shorebirds were not foraging south slowly like they usually do.  Tomorrow I hope to start the fall passerine migration and try to start tracking down some of the holes in that category, specifically olive-sided flycatcher.  I've invested in a mosquito-net hat which should let me actually experience the fall passerine migration in the river bottom behind the house.  For the last 2 years I've had to wait for the first cold weather to enjoy the late birds (the kinglets, winter wrens, zonotrichia sparrows etc) but I still need some toughies (gray-cheeked thrush, Philadelphia vireo, pine warbler) that will be September migrants.

The willet before the storm

I biked out to Tiscornia yesterday morning at dawn with storm clouds from the west racing the sun to cover the eastern horizon. The storm clouds won; despite clear sky above me as I started out, the sun managed only a faint pink flush on the lighthouses before the overcast (with distant thunder) won out.

There were more gulls on the beach than there have been, including my first juvie Bonapartes of the fall. One of the juvie ring-billed's was pecking away at a tennis ball, seeming sure that there would be a juicy reward for its efforts besides a stomach full of fuzz. A tern flew across well out which I initially took to be a black tern through binoculars but was instead a bird in the medium tern class through the scope. However, it did indeed appear to have a gray body and throat with a contrasting white cheek patch. The outer 1 or 2 primaries were black with a thin trailing edge of black along the primaries. It seemed like it was most likely an arctic tern, but having no experience with them, I didn't feel I could be positive under the darkening light conditions (though I've never seen a Forster's or common look like that). I think it's going to be a big one that got away.

At any rate, I was trying to decided when to bail with a storm approaching; it seemed like it was getting darker rather than lighter, the thunder seemed to be slowly getting closer. A willet eventually convinced me, flying through the scope parallel to the shore south past the piers. Given that I need it for the Bigby year I decided to bail right then and there lest I need rescue and not be able to count the bird. I nearly made it home dry, but at about 3/4 of a mile on the final rise it just started dumping rain and I got pretty wet (guess I shouldn't have stopped at a bakery on the way home).

Storm lines kept coming through the day, culminating in what I understand were 70-80 mph winds coming off the lake in New Buffalo last night (THAT would have been interesting to see) and the tern was never re-found. Hopefully I can get back out on Saturday and get in a decent lakewatch; it's supposed to be cooler, hopefully that will mean NW winds...

200

Well, after about 2 months of work to pick up the last dozen species of so, I finally hit 200 birds for the Bigby year (a number I hit in early May typically), finding a Bonaparte's gull at Tiscornia. The adults start their post-breeding dispersal now, in about a week juvies will start showing up on the beach as well. The bird today was still in full breeding plumage; looking back at my records, July birds are usually about 50-50 between fully hooded birds and others well on their way to winter body plumage. I spent about 3 hours on the beach, where despite NW winds, all I managed were about 1-2 dozen sanderling, a least sandpiper, the Bonaparte's and 3 Forster's terns.

Somewhere along the way home I biked mile #600 as well. My knee is pretty sore from going way too many miles last week (~65 over 4 days) and the hills were pretty tough today. I think I'm pretty much done on long rides (20 miles or more roundtrip). I don't see myself going after least bittern out at Smith Lake. I'm not sure when/if I'll return to Sarett either. Sarett is the best place for black-billed cuckoo as a resident bird, I went last week but all I heard was yellow-billed's repeatedly (though a night-heron did fly over as a nice bonus).

The full-hooded Bonaparte's pic is from almost exactly a year ago at Tiscornia, the moulting bird (with fading legs) is from September of last year. I'll have to see if the half-hooded birds in July also have already faded their legs next time I go.

A nemesis no more

Well, 2 nights ago I finally started gaining some momentum back, adding 3 birds to the Bigby list, one more than I managed in all of June. I started off with nighthawks calling over St. Joseph on my way to Tiscornia. Unfortunately it was fully dark by the time I got there and I didn't have a chance at the avocets or godwits seen there. I headed south to Grand Mere SP where after some time I did eventually hear one of the whip-poor-wills that's been heard there after some concerted whistling every 5 minutes or so.

After lazing on the couch for a few hours, I headed back out to Tiscornia, getting there at sunrise. The big shorebirds appeared to be absent from Tiscornia or Silver Beach so I started walking north towards Jean Kloch beach and flushed a shorebird from within 15 feet of me. I could see it was a piping plover the second it popped up. It flew back down the beach and landed. Endangered in Michigan, it's one of a handful of regularly occurring Michigan birds I've never seen in the state. Once I'd spotted the sand-colored bird in the sand, it did give good looks, revealing a fairly worn adult sporting 5 bands (orange, green, black, and silver). I'd never noticed the orange eyering in the past.

Little blue heron is probably now the most common bird for the lower peninsula I still need for Michigan, another bird I've never chased in the past since I assumed I'll eventually just find one. Perhaps though I'd have been better driving after one when gas was $1.80 rather than waiting for a close one at $5... ah well.

Spinning my wheels

Well, June has been a pretty rough month on the bike. I did try for the pelican about a week and a half ago, biking out to Tiscornia only to find the winds still wrong. I went up to Jean Kloch to photograph red-headeds with some success, definitely my best images of the species. However, when we drove back in the afternoon to let the kids play on the swingset and stuff, what's on the beach but a willet. Grrrr.

Two nights ago I biked over to Grand Mere SP, starting at Lincoln Twp Beach. A chat was singing prominently, clearly doing themes and variations on some of the local birds, some robin-like tup-tup-tup sequences, some wood thrush intro notes, and most annoyingly a Virginia Rail sequence. I still don't have Virginia Rail and I didn't get least bittern there either. I did get a ton of mosquito bites while waiting and pacing along the edge of the marsh.

I moved on to the main entrance and biked down one of the trails into the sandy blow-out and started whistling whip-poor-will. I startled some marsh wrens into song (another species like chat, that is MUCH easier to find in Berrien than in Washtenaw), but no sign of a whip. From there I had to decide whether to continue on to Warren Dunes to go for the whip-poor-will there or to turn back. I wasn't sure that I would get to Warren Dunes before first light, but I figured I'd have a shot at nighthawks over Stevensville or the Rambo Rd ponds even if I was a little late so continued south. I did indeed arrive just as it was starting to lighten and the first wood thrushes, pewees, and tanagers were firing up. I got no rise out of the whip-poor-will there (though the mosquitoes again appreciated my efforts). Nighthawks no-showed as well. A few dickcissels on the way back in various places included my first for Lake Twp, but weren't really worth the 35 mile ride.

So, for the month I think I've added 2 species to the Bigby list, yellow-billed cuckoo in the back yard and dickcissel half a mile from my house. The other 70 miles were for naught. Ah well. I've got other spots for most of the birds, but it'd be nice to pick up some momentum here soon.

Bigbying is for the birds

and I mean crappy birds like cowbirds and starlings. Biked again down to Floral Lane, a solid 15 miles down and right away did not find the worm-eating warbler that's been on territory there for the last week or so. The last 2 years a wormer has spent the summer in Warren Dunes, but I guess the moderate-strong north winds of the last few days convinced it to go back to where it belongs. I went a few more miles to check out the old territory from the last few years without success. I walked at least a couple more to get out to the dune blowout where summer tanagers have been the last 2 years with equally discouraging results. I then started fighting the headwind back north after spending all day yesterday on the couch with a fever and body aches and really struggled. Ginger drove by (as she does at times when out running errands and in the area) and I gave up and stuck the bike in the back of the truck.

The bike is fine for exercise and all, but it gets frustrating when a place that's maybe 25 minutes from my house by car is a 4 hour round trip on a bike. Whereas normally I might be home by noon or one (and hitting a couple different places, say Tiscornia Beach then a passerine spot), now I go to one place and aren't home until 3 or so, missing as much of the day at home as I would if I had a day shift. So far I've been to Tiscornia Beach once this May (and that to chase the glaucous-winged). Last year I hit Tiscornia 7 times in May (which is not enough) seeing/finding birds like whimbrel, laughing, Franklin's, and California gull, with the gulls all coming in the last week. This year I'm struggling just to tally fairly straightforward birds that would have come easily by car (many of which I've seen in the relatively limited car birding I've done this year; there's still 20 birds on the county year list I'm "not" keeping missing from the Bigby tally).

Anyway, I was a little slow on the trigger when probable Traill's flycatcher and scarlet tan perched for not quite long enough so the pics are all flowers. The one at the top is the flower head for white (?) baneberry (might be red). Above is a nice Solomon's Seal and below the beginnings of Squawroot (maybe it's now called long-tailed weed, I'm ignorant of updates in botanic nomenclature)

Chasin' Chuckie

I decided to do something pretty sick 2 nights ago after finishing up the last blog post ... I biked out after the chuck-will's-widow starting at 1:30 in the morning (well I had to switch my days/nights for the last 2 overnight shifts somehow). It was a calm night with a full moon so I figured I'd have as good a chance of success as anytime. My next night shift isn't for a few weeks so despite the fact I'd already gone 35 miles I told myself I should really go after it. For a little added fun I couldn't help but remember that the local paper claimed a reliable mountain lion sighting along this stretch of road earlier in the year. Oh well, they're more afraid of us than we are of them, right? Right?? I stuck a hatchet in the pack on the back of the bike just in case (seems pretty silly here in the light of day eh?).

The calm night made it much easier to make progress and I made a conscious effort to take it easy given tired joints, so once I got started I made much better progress than I expected. I arrived at Jones road and started slowly working south, eventually hearing the bird on about my 3rd stop. It was pretty easy to hear from the southern section of the road close to the Clear Lake Rd intersection. Buoyed by success I then decided to just go "a little farther" to hit the Randall road site where we had whip-poor-will on birdathon. This turned into about a 10 mile unsuccessful detour that really sapped the legs. I dragged myself to the back of Love Creek to try to hear barred owls, but didn't hear any initiallly. I settled onto a bench to doze and await the dawn and discovered why Survivorman always rails against breaking a sweat. I was cold. I certainly had enough clothes for the temperature but the damp inner layer made it hard to catch any rest. Eventually the owls started calling with some light in the sky. I headed down to the creek (presumably Love Creek) and quickly heard a Louisiana Waterthrush sing a few bars in the pre-dawn gloom.  I headed back to the bike, hearing a mourning warbler, and beat my way home into the wind (dropping off the yellow warb from the day before at Andrews on my way).  I stopped at the Andrews Dairy ponds and discovered that unless you want your water bottles dusted with cow manure, this probably isn't the best place to look for shorebirds (there were a few dunlin and semi plovers).

The chuck, barred owl, and waterthrush brought me to 190 for the year so I can now work on counting down to 200.

Target Birding, part I

My plans for today were to head down to Floral again, the best migration spot, to try and knock off a couple more of the remaining passerine migrants (yellow-bellied flycatcher, olive-sided flycatcher, gray-cheeked thrush, and Philadelphia vireo), since I probably won't be able to get back out before migration is really done with my work schedule. However, the forecast called for NW winds which would give me a direct headwind for the 15+ miles back and I decided I really didn't want to face that kind of obstacle on tired legs so I started north into the wind heading for Sarett Nature Center for a number of the harder residents and still with a shot at migrants.

I had traveled most of the way there when I heard one of the targets, an orchard oriole, singing from a line of maples over an overgrown pasture. After stopping for a flock of warblers at roadside (the best flock I would find all day) including male BT green, cape may, and redstart and female black and white, I started picking up grasshopper sparrows in some of the overgrown fields around Sarett. A few miles farther down the road at Brown Sanctuary the chat was quiet when I arrived. I headed down to the marsh quickly hearing soras (which were silent for Birdathon) and eventually hearing marsh wrens (also silent for Birdathon), and not hearing the Virginia rail we had then. Prothonotary warbler was the next target and it sang more or less on cue after a great-horned owl flushed down the river (also missed a few days ago). By the time I made it back up to the bike the chat was singing. I waited a little to see if it would come out in the open without success. With that it was back to Sarett to try to pull out one of the migrants. It was still quite windy and I found it hard to find sheltered areas that could harbor the birds. There were a few birds around, black-throated green, chestnut-sided, and a yellow-throated vireo but I found it slow going with the exception of the empids. Least flycatchers seemed to be setting up territories everywhere and were singing and perching prominently, allowing good scope views for study. The olive backs were not really that contrasting from the rest of the bird at all. The difference between them and the yellow-bellied that appeared, calling, was quite pronounced, with the yellow-bellied being a much greener bird overall with warm yellow wash across the flanks and belly. Arguably, the yellow-bellied was the bird I most needed given that the others can still be found in few months (just gotta get the olive-sided before they disappear at the very front end of southbound migration) and they'll be virtually un-identifiable in fall.

After getting some decent pics of a tiger swallowtail warming up, it was off to the lake, stopping first at Jean Kloch park to pick up the red-headed woodpeckers before their snag is razed in the "progress/re-vitalization" process of turning a public park into a private golf course (don't ask). I stayed long enough to glimpse a bird but given that a car was parked underneath it in the remote corner of the lot probably dealing drugs I didn't stand around staring in that direction with binoculars waiting for a leisurely study.

Today was one of the 90% of days that Tiscornia Beach held only typical birds, Caspian and common terns, a couple dunlin, a sanderling, and a semipalmated plover. The ultimate success of the Bigby year will lie in how often I can get there to turn up the "good" birds.

Today's specimen is an unfortunate yellow warbler picked up off the curb that will soon permanently reside in a drawer at Andrews. I couldn't believe how tiny the bird actually was, much shorter than the short dimension of the ziploc bag I stuck it in. Kind of a shame that such a minute bird would survive a Gulf crossing only to get hit by a car on the breeding grounds. Also went past a squished thrasher right about where we got one on birdathon last year.