Birds have hard lives

Today at Detroit International Wildlife Refuge located on Lake Erie again I was looking for Odonata.  I was on the walkway between two ponds; this year with an explosion of phragmites growing on both sides.  I heard a Killdeer and thought it was flying overhead, but it continued to call insistently and I saw it then on a large triangle of grass where the walkway meets the bike trail.  The Killdeer was quite riled up, calling and walking rapidly this way and that way - as they do - especially when the mate is on its nest or juveniles are nearby.  I did not see a mate or any juveniles accompanying it.  

Then, at the edge of the grass, on the asphalt bike trail I saw something that appeared mostly white.  It could have been a dropped piece of clothing, a crumpled bit of tissue, a white-footed mouse ... or a dead baby Killdeer.   

It had been dead for perhaps an hour or two?  It was still warm, but of course the asphalt was warm.  It was not crushed or otherwise damaged as if a cat or other predator had got it.  I wondered if a bike had hit it.  It was just a fuzzling.  Perhaps not even big enough to get out of the way on its still wobbly legs.  Lying on the asphalt as it did the parent bird could see it clearly.  I believe the parent was still calling to it, warning it and trying to protect its little fuzzling.      

At the edge of the bike trail I found an area of tall grass with shade that had a soft little pocket at its center.  I laid the fledgling Killdeer in the center and pulled the taller grass down and over the top.  It wasn't covered fully, but it was no longer visible on the bike path either. Whether this calmed or fooled the parent bird, I don't know.    

My experience with observing death is that people, perhaps not all but many, will just shrug and say that death is part of life.  Not just with animal death, with human death also.  True enough, this isn't wrong.   But death, even human death, is also becoming less and less honored. A shrug of the shoulders.  Holding this tiny creature in my hand and thinking about what to do for it and for its distressed parent, I wanted to honor the sadness and misfortune of its unnecessary death.  

I was reminded of an experience in Norway.  The van was traveling on a two lane road that traversed two vast areas of tundra.  Ahead on the road we saw a white clump.  There were only two possibilities for what the white clump could be - both ptarmigan.  Our guide stopped the van, got out and walked to the clump.  He held up the dead body of a Rock ptarmigan.  Having already passed a dead Willow ptarmigan earlier, we knew his feelings about it - 'drivers are careless, they don't pay attention, they don't slow down' - and then he gave the ptarmigan a heave and threw it back out on the tundra where it wouldn't continue to be run over by vehicle tires and end up just feathers blowing in the wind.  On the tundra it would at least be someplace where another animal might find it and make it a meal.  It was someplace where it had once lived.  Both ptarmigans were dead at the peak of their breeding season, on the cusp of bringing new life into the world.  

Anthropomorphic?  Probably, but I'm okay with that.

Moving on

How do I move on from writing and editing my Finland and Norway trip posts?  To tell the truth, I'm happy that I completed my project, but I always feel sadness when something I enjoyed so much is finished.  Changing my blog title photo is a good start.   

I only know one other way.  That is, to get back out in the field.  I didn't choose the best of days, overcast skies and threats of rain proved to be true for this particular day.  Still, I went to Crosswinds Marsh in the hopes of finding - well, anything; but my focus was on dragonflies.  Overcast skies are not the best weather for odes, but I did see a few things.  I also got the photo of the perched Eastern Kingbird (Tyrannus tyrannus), one of my favorite birds to photograph - somehow I never tire of it - to switch out my blog title page.  Otherwise, overall I didn't see much, but I did find and photograph a few other things.  Back to business as usual.  

Can anyone guess what this bottle brush is?

Milkweed tussock tiger moth (Euchaetes egle) caterpillar

A really good name for this caterpillar.

The stem the caterpillar is traversing is that of common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca).

Incidentally, the hairs on this caterpillar are not poisonous or toxic, but they can cause irritation of the skin if handled.  My guess is that birds keep their distance!

Above:  Juvenile Rough-winged Swallow (Stelgidopteryx serripennis)

Unexpected to see the juvenile Rough-wing lined up along the boardwalk railing with all of the juvenile Barn Swallows (Hirundo rustica), now fledged from their nests beneath the eves of the cabana.

Above and below:  *Female Saffron-winged Meadowhawk (Sympetrum costiferum)

The Saffron-winged Meadowhawk is a new dragonfly for me and this is always exciting.  It's hard for me to find a new species of dragonfly.  I don't get to travel to enough new places and new habitats, so my luck rests with finding a new species at my typical haunts.  Possibly three other Sympetrum species were also present in the same area today.  I don't have confidence netting dragonflies, but today I think I would have been successful.  Unfortunately, I didn't take my net along.  IDs of Cherry-faced, Ruby and White-faced meadowhawks will not be accepted if they have not been examined in the hand.

Finally, I saw this tiny, 1 inch, new damselfly trapped in a spider web along the boardwalk and thought it was dead.  I released it from the web and its wings flicked a little.  Soon it was crawling all over my hand and occasionally trying out its wings.  I had to take the photos with my iPhone's awful camera.  I have no idea what it is, but will go out on a limb and say it's a Skimming Bluet (Enallagma geminatum).  Skimming Bluets are common at the edges of the water of Crosswinds Marsh, it was very small and appeared as if it would mature into a black-type bluet.  My second guess is Orange Bluet (E. signatum), although I've never seen one at Crosswinds Marsh.  No reason they can't be there.

  Afterthought:  Could also be an Eastern Forktail (Ischnura verticalis).

Not a bad afternoon.

Addendum 07/28/2025

* My identification of the Saffron-winged Meadowhawk was disputed and a second opinion held up the dispute.  I've retracted this from the on-line site where I document the Odonata that I see in the field.  It is now a Sympetrum sp.  As with many of the Sympetrum sp., the Saffron-winged is a dragonfly that needs to be netted and viewed in the hand for proper identification.  This is certainly not a first for me.

Kun kaikki on sanottu ja tehty

Kun kaikki on sanottu ja tehty.  When all is said and done.  I hope that Ismo Leikola will not disagree with this translation.

In the first couple of days Nigel Redman told us that, at the end of the trip, he would ask each trip participant to list their top five favorite birds seen on the trip.  So, we should be thinking of this as the days went by. This may be a Rockjumper tradition and I like it.  I admit that I spent some time on this little task.  

My list:

5.  Tied:  Ortolan Bunting and Red-throated Pipit

4.  Smew 

3.  Boreal Owl

2.  Dotterel 

1.  King Eider

The final group wide tally is available in the last addendum (scroll down) dated 07/22/2025.  Click on the link Finland and Norway trip report.  After writing all of this, for my own favorites, I might have switched places with Dotterel and King Eider on my list.  But it doesn't matter. Both are great birds. 

My favorite photos

Singing an aria to the sea.  Puffins doing cute things - impossible!   

Dotterel on nest in the middle of the tundra (in photo center and slightly to the right).

This male Dotterel is on Kaunispää Fell, a vast tundra landscape, by himself to incubate his eggs and raise his young.  If I understood Anttu correctly, this was his third breeding season in this location.  The further north we traveled, we saw many birds migrating to their arctic breeding sites, many to Siberia, but this Dotterel was my favorite.  The distance he flew to get here and his success reminds me of the hard lives that birds have.  I'll be checking in with Anttu next year to see if our Dotterel is back for another year.

My "best" photos

When I returned from the trip and downloaded my photos, I immediately deleted about two-thirds of them.  I continue to enjoy all that I kept for one reason or another - especially those that I included in my blog entries.  But, honestly, it seemed to me that none of the photos were really good.  There was always something - distance, lighting, angle, camera settings, being rushed, whatever it might have been - that seemed to thwart a really good image.  I will probably always be challenged by my deficient digital camera IQ.  I did select four photos, three of them already included in prior entries and one additional that I didn't have a place for.

I've always wanted a photo like this, but never thought it would be a Boreal Owl!

Things lined up quite well for this Red-throated Pipit photo.

Note:  When I received Nigel Redman's Rockjumper trip report, I was amused to see that the photo he selected for Red-throated Pipit was his own and, essentially, identical to my photo above.  I swear, I did not pilfer any photos for these blog entries.  [Of course, the exceptions are Bernard Raynaud's Red-flanked Bluetail and Capercaillie photos and Anttu's Dotteral photo - all of which I included with permission.]

Photo of Common Eider and King Eider swimming together is very appealing.

 

Bright and colorful photo of the Eurasian Wigeon (Mareca penelope), a handsome duck.

Our biggest miss

Every trip has a few.  For this trip I would say that our biggest miss was the Ring Ouzel (Turdus torquatus).  In the Norway "cap" it seemed we were always in Ring Ouzel habitat.   Anttu did callback in several different areas.  Even I, to get out of the van that was protecting me, (and at the same time driving me crazy), from the driving wind while the others were standing around doing a sea watch, went walking up the road and began doing my own callback for the Ring Ouzel.  No luck. But wouldn't it have been something if one had responded?  My escape was a nice little getaway for me, even if just to stretch my legs.  Later the van came along and picked me up.  Getting back into the van, I felt like a re-captured prisoner, only not in as much trouble.  On the whole though, we didn't miss much.    

For anyone interested, here is the eBird trip report:  Finland and Norway eBird trip report.  All of the eBird entries were compiled by our Finnish guide, Antero Topp, with Finnature Touring.  For my money, Anttu's efforts were truly phenomenal.  I will say that, at trip's end, he looked exhausted.

Addendum on 07/08/2025

Why wait until next year to check in with Anttu about the success of the Dotterel's nest?  I emailed him yesterday with two questions.  This morning I received his reply as follows:

1. I think it was successful because the male was still hatching in mid June when the last Finnature group visited the site. Hatching time can be 28 days so I don't know absolutely sure what was the result, but it has been successfully on the eggs already for about 20 days so it looks really promising. Of course the chicks have to survive many days before they can fly and I haven't heard anything about the chicks. Male was ringed on 07 Jul 2019 very close to where the nest was also this year.  It was only a few days old and it was still in the nest.

2. Yes you can use my photo.

Anttu's photo colors are much richer and the Dotterel's face is clearer.

Anttu writes that the Dotterel was ringed (banded) on 07 July 2019, making him now six years old.  This is older than I had originally thought, and he has shown remarkable nest site fidelity.  The miles he has flown!

Addendum on 07/15/2025

I'll be honest and say that, no doubt, from time-to-time I'll return to these blog entries and tweak them here or there.  But this is the end. Assembling my photos to tell the story and writing the narratives - 23 entries in just over a month - was an enormously pleasurable activity for me.  Since returning from Finland and Norway just over five weeks ago, I haven't achieved much else around home.  

My blog goes against what I believe it is that attracts others to view blogs; which is the photos.  I spoke about this recently with another blogger who places his photos front and center.   My blog includes a lot of narrative.  I always try my best with my photos, but for me it's the story of the trip and writing about it that brings it back to life.  I loved Finland and Norway and this is a trip I don't want to forget.  Even the whiny parts.  My own belief is that people, generally and worldwide, are reading less and less.  But, for me, I want to read more and more. Call me a contrarian and I will plead guilty, but for me reading is where I find the richness in life.  

Addendum on 07/22/2025

As promised and hot off the press, just received in my email this morning.  This is the official Rockjumper Tours Finland and Norway trip report.  It was compiled by Nigel Redman, our tour leader.  Rockjumper Birding also includes the trip report on their website.  It's a good website.  I recommend checking it out. 

If you got through this whole thing - all 23 posts - thank you all for looking and reading. 

Marathon

There are many kinds of marathons.  A running race.  An extra innings baseball game.  A World Cup soccer match that ends with a penalty shoot out.  A three and a half hour long war movie that you watched to the end.  I think of my Finland and Norway blog as a marathon. 

Unlike running a marathon which, in my younger years, I failed to finish, I have nearly made it to the end of my trip.  Twenty-two posts so far with one more photo entry and perhaps an adjacent essay-style entry will finish it off.  I've truly enjoyed it.  I told my best story and it may be my best trip review yet.  Of course, primarily it's all about the birds, but this is what the trip was inescapably about.    

After finishing the eider post, I switched out my header.  You can tell I was a little punch happy when I made it. 

A few additional photos to add.

Sign at the border of Finland and Russia.

The road was blocked by a locked gate.  We came here on May 26th for our afternoon coffee and cookies after seeing the White-throated Dipper (Cinclus cinclus) beneath a road bridge over a fast moving river at Jyrkänkoski.  The border was about an hour drive from there.  Just a week before our visit to the dipper site and the Russian border, this article appeared in the New York Times:  "Russia Beefs Up Bases Near Finland's Border."  Gives me the shivers.  I was happy to be on the Finnish side drinking my coffee and eating cookies.

A charming, mid-morning stop for coffee and bird feeders at a restaurant in Lapland.

Lapland resident.

Båtsfjord harbor, Norway

One view, used for my header, of Båtsfjord village

Above and below:  Black Guillemot (Cepphus grylle) 

In Båtsfjord harbor where I found the Black-legged Kittiwake colony. There were four in total.

Another view of Båtsfjord harbor across from the kittiwake colony.

The above landscape is beautiful.  Reindeer in the center.

Nesseby Church in Nesseby

Sheep with lambs.  

Do I need five photos of sheep with lambs?  Probably not, but I did enjoy watching them.  At first I thought there was just one sheep with two lambs, but then others came out from behind the little grassy hills to join them.

Eiders

This experience reminded me of a similar experience during my first trip to Costa Rica.  I went back in my blog to a post titled Scarlet Macaws, dated February 24, 2014, to read what I wrote back then and look at the photos again.  I wanted to see if I was remembering correctly.  Yes, this was sort of like that.  

It was Saturday, May 31st and if my checklist is any guide, it was one of our busiest days of birding.  We started out in Båtsfjord, made several morning stops, some of which I have already named with other birds, and after a bagged lunch came to our second afternoon stop in Vadsø harbor.  The vans were parked and we all piled out into the harbor area. I don't recall either guide saying, "Take your cameras.  Go have fun." And we did not interrupt an intimate meeting of two lovers.  That part was different.  But we were here for one bird, and that part was very similar.  As with the Scarlet Macaws, this will always be memorable.  

I was slow on the uptake and thought we had come here for the close Common Eiders (Somateria mollissima).  We had seen them before, but more distantly.

It was when the little bird bringing up the rear in the top photo turned to give a lateral view that I saw why we had come.  

King Eider (Somateria spectabilis).  But so far away!

The King Eider did not stay far away but first it went around the bow of a boat and disappeared under the wharf.

Above and below:  Common Eider pair.

I like the rippled appearance of the surface of the water in these photos.

Those feet!

Harbors have lots of places for curious eiders to explore.

The King Eider returned from beneath the wharf and this time it was much closer.

I like the water drop at the tip of its bill. 

Above:  male Common Eider.  Handsome in its own right.

Above:  female Common Eider diving.

Above and two below:  Possibly my favorites of these photos.

All of the photos above, so similar to each other, are not necessary to remind me that I saw a King Eider in Norway.  Many people have seen King Eiders in Norway.  However, unless I return to Norway or travel to some other arctic birding spot, I am unlikely to ever see a King Eider again.  It's difficult for me to push the delete key on this bird.  I have deleted many, but all of these are keepers.  Such a quiet little bird. 

King Eiders were seen again, most notably a flock of 65 flew by at a sea watch in Persfjord, but I don't think many of us were able to get on those.  I didn't.  In any event a sea watch (as already discussed in The Lighthouse) would not be like our Vadsø harbor bird.

We did, however, come across our little eider again at the park in Vardø where we saw the displaying Ruffs, the school kids on an outing and the unidentified (moose, reindeer?) skull.  Circled in the photo above, it was taken from far away.  Of the other birds in the photo, aside from the Common Eiders, I only recognize Common Mergansers (Mergus merganser).  But the gray head (arrow pointing directly to it) and creamy breast feathers of the King Eider are very recognizable.  So it was that I said goodby to my first, and most likely only, King Eider. 

Personal addendum 8/02/2025

Yesterday morning I started the day learning that a Terek Sandpiper had been seen on one of the Aleutian islands on July 21st when I logged into the ABA Community site.  After a busy day I capped it off with a documentary movie from Norway titled Folktales.  I was driving home thinking that I should email the details of this movie to our Finland/Norway guide.  Then I remembered, no, he's from Finland (even though the movie takes place in Finnmark, an area where we went).  Although a couple of bird vocalizations could be heard here and there (I recognized a thrush song) and one scene showed a Siberian Jay perched at the top of a conifer tree, it was not a movie about birds.  I didn't email him.  I slept pretty well last night, somewhat uncommon for me.  I was aware of some dreaming, but that's about it.  

Recently I have been having dreams about being lost somewhere and trying to get to some other place but I have also lost my phone.  So how will I ever get to wherever I need to be?  It's a dream so it remains unresolved.  There is always a lot of fumbling around.  These have been early morning dreams so I have been able to wake myself up from them.  I am relieved when I make myself wake up.  Thank God it was only a dream.  I always look for my phone where I leave it each night before sleeping.

This morning I was semi-awake from 4:00 - 5:00 am, but then got back to sleep.  Then I remember that I opened my eyes and the clock read 6:20.  I fell back asleep and began dreaming.  I dreamed that I was stopped at a gas station and was speaking with someone (a friend?, it wasn't clear) and I happened to glance over at a pond that was adjacent to the gas station.  I saw a male breeding plumaged King Eider paddling calmly next to a Mallard.  Oh my god, oh my god, still in my olden days thinking, I have to call someone.  Again a lot of fumbling around.  Who should I call?  I had no birders' numbers in my phone and I couldn't think of anyone's name.  I kept watching the little King Eider swim placidly along.  Oh wait, what am I thinking, I have the Discord app.  Oh, but I'll need a photo.  I began the process of trying to get a photo with my iPhone's terrible camera, reminding myself that it didn't need to be a good photo, just recognizable.  As I was trying for the photo, I was trying to think of my Discord password.  And so it went ... by this time I knew I was dreaming and made myself wake up.  It was 8:00 am.  My cat was looking at me.  Feed me, she said, without using words.  I was awake and the King Eider was gone.